Simulations of ionospheric effects on SAR at P-band

Author

Liu, Jun ; Kuga, Yasuo ; Ishimaru, Akaira ; Freeman, Tony

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng., Washington Univ., Seattle, WA, USA

Volume

3

fYear

1999

fDate

1999

Firstpage

1842

Abstract

There has been an increasing interest in the use of space-borne SAR for measuring forest biomass which requires the use of longer wavelengths for enhanced foliage penetration. However, the propagation characteristics of the wave will be seriously affected by the ionosphere, especially below P-band (500 MHz). In this paper, two numerical models are developed. The first model investigates the degradation of the SAR image due to large-scale changes of the electron density. Two cases are investigated, and a significant degradation of the SAR resolution due to the ionosphere is observed in our simulation. The second model simulates the ray-bending effects on the SAR system. Our result shows a significant image shift at P-band

Keywords

UHF radio propagation; electron density; image resolution; ionospheric electromagnetic wave propagation; radar imaging; radar resolution; remote sensing by radar; spaceborne radar; 500 MHz; P-band; SAR; SAR image; SAR resolution; degradation; electron density; foliage penetration; forest biomass; image shift; ionospheric effects; large-scale changes; numerical models; propagation characteristics; ray-bending effects; space-borne SAR; Apertures; Degradation; Electrons; Fluctuations; Ionosphere; Laboratories; Large-scale systems; Numerical models; Propulsion; Signal resolution;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, 1999. IGARSS '99 Proceedings. IEEE 1999 International

Conference_Location

Hamburg

Print_ISBN

0-7803-5207-6

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IGARSS.1999.772113

Filename

772113