An analysis of a rotating, range-gated, fanbeam spaceborne scatterometer concept

A new simple scatterometer concept combines the advantages of both the fixe d, multiple beam, sidelooking radar such as AMI-Wind (ERS-1/2) and NSCAT (A DEOS), and the conically scanning pencil-beam radar such as SeaWinds, A wid e, fanbeam antenna is rotated around a vertical axis with a slow rotation r ate. For a satellite at an altitude of 725 km, the antenna footprint sweeps a circular donut of 1500 km diameter. Such a slow conical scan combined wi th the motion of the satellite at approximate to 7 km/s ground speed result s in highly overlapping successive sweeps such that an image pixel is revis ited up to 10 similar to 11 times during an overpass. The pixels in the rad ial direction are resolved by range-gating the radar echo. Depending on the across-track position of the imaged pixel, the measurement acquisitions du ring an overpass consist of a set of sigma degrees at different combination s of the azimuth and incident angles. A preliminary optimization of the sys tem resulted in a C-band radar concept with a 15 km multiple-look spatial r esolution and global coverage in two days. A sketch of the developed concep t, preliminary system design, and predicted performance are described.