A Time-Domain Simulation System of MICAP L-Band Radiometer for Pre-Launch RFI Processing Study

Abstract

Microwave Imager Combined Active and Passive (MICAP), which is a package of active and passive microwave instruments including L/C/K-band radiometers and L-band scatterometer, has been approved to be taken onbord the Chinese Ocean Salinity Mission. The L-band one-dimensional synthetic aperture radiometer (L-Rad) is the key part of MICAP to measure sea surface salinity (SSS). Since radio frequency interference (RFI) is reported as a serious threat to L-band radiometry, the RFI detection and mitigation techniques must be carefully designed before launch. However, these techniques need to be developed based on the knowledge of how RFI affects complex correlation, visibility function, and reconstructed brightness temperature. This paper presents a time-domain signal modeling method for the simulation of interferometric measurement under RFI’s presences, and a simulation system for L-Rad is established accordingly. Several RFI cases are simulated with different RFI types, parameters, and positions; and the RFI characteristics upon L-Rad’s measurement are discussed. The proposed simulation system will be further dedicated to the design of RFI processing strategy onboard MICAP.