A demonstration experiment of an new-generation airborne altimeter in-situ absolute calibration suite

An airborne delay Doppler altimeter was flown in autumn 2014. A calibration suite including a GNSS buoy, two tide gauges and two GPS stations were established. An experiment was carried out to test the GNSS buoy as a whole under dynamic ocean condition, to validate its performance and accuracy via the inter-comparison of tide gauges, and to demonstrate the altimetry calibration methods and to estimate the altimeter system bias. This paper presented some methods and results. The GNSS buoy system was proven to have the ability of measuring the sea surface height within 1cm, and the altimeter system bias had a consistency of centimeter level.