Accuracy and resolution analysis of the pencil beam radar scatterometer onboard China’s HY-2 satellite

The Ku-band scatterometer onboard HY-2 (SCAT/HY-2) is a pencil-beam radar employing pulse compression techniques to ensure number of the independent measurement samples and the resulted precision of the backscattering coefficient for each resolution cell. In this paper, the system specifications of SCAT/HY-2 are introduced. The signal processing scheme, including pulse compression, resolution cell regroup and the area weighted incoherent average of the backscattered power, is presented and analyzed. Based on the analysis of the resolution cell after pulse compression processing, the radiometric accuracy and surface resolution of the SCAT/HY-2 for all the azimuth angles will be simulated. Simulation and analysis results shows that SCAT/HY-2 can satisfy the specification requirements of HY-2 satellite.