A SAR instrument for global monitoring of land surfaces and polar ice

Abstract

This paper describes on-going efforts to define a novel SAR instrument to globally monitor the land surfaces and the polar regions. A wide-swath/modest resolution concept has been put forth in order to satisfy future needs in climate change studies. A top-down approach starting from the mission objectives has been adopted in order to specify the sensor parameters.

Metrics to evaluate compression algorithms for raw SAR data

“…This means that the magnitude component should be preserved as well as possible when investigating the compression of the raw SAR data for man‐made target detection. This condition can be monitored by comparing all the error measures of the magnitude component, which include the MSE and SDNR. Global monitoring (change detection): SAR is used for earth observation applications like ice monitoring and the study of climate change, where the global carbon cycle, the global energy/water cycle and other human activities are monitored [38, 41]. The SAR system needs to be sensitive to small changes when monitoring a global cycle, consequently the radiometric resolution of the SAR system is an important factor [41].…”

“…The radiometric resolution of an imaging system describes its ability to detect very slight differences in reflected energy. In order to preserve the radiometric resolution of a system, frequent calibrations are required [41]. A high SNR indicates that the signal level is greater than the noise level and therefore the noise does not mask any of the small changes that may appear in a scene.…”