An experimental implementation of interferometric techniques for sea level variation measurements and reflection coefficient phase determination

A remote interferometric method to measure sea level variations in coastal regions is discussed and results of numerous experimental tests are summarized. A bistatic scheme of measurements is employed with horizontal separation of transmitter-receiver terminals ranging from 400 m to 2700 m. To account for the impact of sea surface roughness, the method incorporates a reflection coefficient phase measuring procedure. The phase of the coherent reflection coefficient measured in the experiments is presented as a function of sea state. The experiments were performed with electronic distance measuring equipment operating at 10-cm wavelength. Preliminary estimates of the measurement accuracy show that errors in sea level variation determination were approximately between 3 cm and 9 cm. These observed errors exceed the theoretical predictions because of various causes, such as technical limitations of the instrumentation, effect of sea surface roughness, etc. More work needs to be done, especially in the area of signal processing, in order to sort out these various effects and reduce their impact on measurement accuracy.