Development of a three-element interferometer at 50∼56 GHz for Geostationary Interferometric Microwave Sounder (GIMS)

The Geostationary Interferometric Microwave Sounder (GIMS) is a new concept imaging radiometer proposed by CSSAR, aiming for China´s next generation geostationary meteorological satellite (FY-4M). The concept of GIMS is based on aperture synthesis with a rotating circular thinned array. A three-element interferometer has been developed and tested to investigate the feasibility of the GIMS system design. A full-scale ground-based demonstrator with 27 elements is also under development, which is defined as a minimum system intended to fulfill the threshold application requirements. In this paper, the preliminary results of these activities will be reported.