The theory and mechanical realization of an ideal scanning method for a single-channel imaging microwave radiometer

The scan path of an imaging microwave radiometer is determined so that the desired area is totally covered, while the overlap between successive sweeps is minimized. This minimizes the number of redundant data points, which, in turn, leads to faster and more economical postprocessing. Different scanning methods and sampling techniques are discussed in brief. Conical scan is chosen and three different approaches are presented. A theory that relates the flight velocity to the angular velocity of the antenna beam to provide an ideal scan pattern is formulated for pendulum scan. Results of each scan method are presented and compared, and the best one is chosen. Some considerations about the mechanical realization and an outline of the instrument are presented