Author : Ji Wu
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9789537619978
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (199 download)
Book Synopsis Interferometric Imaging Technology for Microwave Radiometers by : Ji Wu
Download or read book Interferometric Imaging Technology for Microwave Radiometers written by Ji Wu and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Interferometric imaging radiometer technology was introduced into the area of Earth observation from radio astronomy technology more than 20 years ago. Due to the differences between astronomy observation and that of the earth observation, the technology has gone through redevelopment over the past 20 years. During redevelopment, there have been two main technical trends. The first one is to be more and more complicated by increasing the number of elements to reach higher spatial resolutions and at the same time to keep its radiometric sensitivity, such as the snapshot 2-D Y-shape designs. This technical trend has relied on the fast development of IC technology that enables us to integrate thousands of correlators into one chip. A representative of this technical approach is the MIRAS payload on SMOS mission by ESA. The other technical trend is trying to reduce the number of elements and using time shared scan scheme in order to cover the complete u-v plane. The initial driving force behind this trend is the necessity to keep the system design simple and manageable. Along this line, as described in this chapter, we have discovered the secrets inside the technology, i.e. the very basic configuration of the interferometric imaging system. It, in fact, can be represented by only two element antennas using the clock scan scheme. Any spatial resolution and radiometric sensitivity can be reached by using this two-element clock scan as basic building blocks in principle. In November 2009, the first ever space mission SMOS using this new technology for earth observation will be launched. We expect a successful demonstration of this technology by SMOS mission. After this, in the near future, we expect to see more missions using this technology such as the geo-sounder on board of either a US weather satellite or a Chinese weather satellite since both are working on it. We would also expect the SPORT mission to be launched before 2020 using 4-4 element clock scan to take images of the interplanetary CMEs and also the universe background emission at 15MHz. It is certainly an exciting technology but perhaps not the dominating technology in the area of passive microwave remote sensing due to its complexity compared to tradition real aperture radiometers. Therefore, the traditional microwave radiometer will still exist. The users will select from both in order to keep the best performance over cost and technical feasibility.