SNR simulation with TDI set for lake water color monitoring oriented satellite RS system

Signal to noise ratio (SNR) with time delay integration (TDI) set is of great significance to the satellite remote sensing (RS) system dedicated to the monitoring of lake water color. The technical requisites were set in this paper taking reference to the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-View Sensor (SeaWiFS), which was aboard on the SeaStar. We simulated radiative transfer process from Taihu Lake water-leaving radiance to apparent radiance on the top of atmosphere using 6S model on 15 of every month, and calculated SNR with TDI set based on the Equivalent Electron Theory. Our results showed that SNR in bands less than 500nm was too low to meet the demand and TDI set was essential in these bands, especially in winter; in bands greater than 500nm, however, the SNR was higher enough (greater than 400) and there was still much potential to improve the spatial or spectral resolution in these bands, especially in summer.