TY - JOUR
T1 - Multibeam focal plane arrays with digital beamforming for high precision space-borne ocean remote sensing
AU - Iupikov, Oleg A.
AU - Ivashina, Marianna V.
AU - Skou, Niels
AU - Cappellin, Cecilia
AU - Pontoppidan, Knud
AU - van´t Klooster, Cornelis G.M.
PY - 2018/2/1
Y1 - 2018/2/1
N2 - The present-day ocean remote sensing instruments that operate at low microwave frequencies are limited in spatial resolution and do not allow for monitoring of the coastal waters. This is due to the difficulties of employing a large reflector antenna on a satellite platform, and generating high-quality pencil beams at multiple frequencies. Recent advances in digital beamforming focal-plane arrays (FPAs) have been exploited in this paper to overcome the above problems. A holistic design procedure for such novel multibeam radiometers has been developed, where: 1) the antenna system specifications are derived directly from the requirements to oceanographic surveys for future satellite missions and 2) the numbers of FPA elements/receivers are determined through a dedicated optimum beamforming procedure minimizing the distance to coast. This approach has been applied to synthesize FPAs for two alternative radiometer systems: a conical scanner with an offset parabolic reflector and a stationary wide-scan torus reflector system, each operating at C -, X-, and Ku-bands. Numerical results predict excellent beam performance for both systems with as low as 0.14% total received power over the land.
AB - The present-day ocean remote sensing instruments that operate at low microwave frequencies are limited in spatial resolution and do not allow for monitoring of the coastal waters. This is due to the difficulties of employing a large reflector antenna on a satellite platform, and generating high-quality pencil beams at multiple frequencies. Recent advances in digital beamforming focal-plane arrays (FPAs) have been exploited in this paper to overcome the above problems. A holistic design procedure for such novel multibeam radiometers has been developed, where: 1) the antenna system specifications are derived directly from the requirements to oceanographic surveys for future satellite missions and 2) the numbers of FPA elements/receivers are determined through a dedicated optimum beamforming procedure minimizing the distance to coast. This approach has been applied to synthesize FPAs for two alternative radiometer systems: a conical scanner with an offset parabolic reflector and a stationary wide-scan torus reflector system, each operating at C -, X-, and Ku-bands. Numerical results predict excellent beam performance for both systems with as low as 0.14% total received power over the land.
KW - Array antennas
KW - microwave radiometers
KW - reflector antenna feeds
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85041888660&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/TAP.2017.2763174
DO - 10.1109/TAP.2017.2763174
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85041888660
VL - 66
SP - 737
EP - 748
JO - IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation
JF - IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation
SN - 0018-926X
IS - 2
M1 - 8068265
ER -