Aksoy, Mustafa | Search NASA

NASA NTRS2018

Tracking Radiometer Calibration Stability Using Three-Point Onboard Calibration

Absolute calibration of radiometers is implemented onboard using one hot and one cold external calibration targets. However, two-point calibration methods are unable to differentiate calibration drifts and associated errors from fluctuations in receiver gain and offset. This paper investigates the use of onboard three-point calibration algorithm for microwave radiometers to track calibration drifts and characterize associated errors in Earth and Space measurements of the radiometer.

Calibration↗

NASA NTRS2015

Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) Microwave Radiometer Radio-Frequency Interference (RFI) Mitigation: Initial On-Orbit Results

The Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission, launched in January 2015, provides global measurements of soil moisture using a microwave radiometer. SMAPs radiometer passband lies within the passive frequency allocation. However, both unauthorized in-band transmitters as well as out-of-band emissions from transmitters operating at frequencies adjacent to this allocated spectrum have been documented as sources of radio frequency interference (RFI) to the L-band radiometers on SMOS and Aquarius. The spectral environment consists of high RFI levels as well as significant occurrences of low level RFI equivalent to 0.1 to 10 K. The SMAP ground processor reports the antenna temperature both before and after RFI mitigation is applied. The difference between these quantities represents the detected RFI level. The presentation will review the SMAP RFI detection and mitigation procedure and discuss early on-orbit RFI measurements from the SMAP radiometer. Assessments of global RFI properties and source types will be provided, as well as the implications of these results for SMAP soil moisture measurements.

radiometers↗

NASA NTRS2015

Physical Models of Layered Polar Firn Brightness Temperatures from 0.5 to 2 GHz

We investigate physical effects influencing 0.5-2 GHz brightness temperatures of layered polar firn to support the Ultra Wide Band Software Defined Radiometer (UWBRAD) experiment to be conducted in Greenland and in Antarctica. We find that because ice particle grain sizes are very small compared to the 0.5-2 GHz wavelengths, volume scattering effects are small. Variations in firn density over cm- to m-length scales, however, cause significant effects. Both incoherent and coherent models are used to examine these effects. Incoherent models include a 'cloud model' that neglects any reflections internal to the ice sheet, and the DMRT-ML and MEMLS radiative transfer codes that are publicly available. The coherent model is based on the layered medium implementation of the fluctuation dissipation theorem for thermal microwave radiation from a medium having a nonuniform temperature. Density profiles are modeled using a stochastic approach, and model predictions are averaged over a large number of realizations to take into account an averaging over the radiometer footprint. Density profiles are described by combining a smooth average density profile with a spatially correlated random process to model density fluctuations. It is shown that coherent model results after ensemble averaging depend on the correlation lengths of the vertical density fluctuations. If the correlation length is moderate or long compared with the wavelength (approximately 0.6x longer or greater for Gaussian correlation function without regard for layer thinning due to compaction), coherent and incoherent model results are similar (within approximately 1 K). However, when the correlation length is short compared to the wavelength, coherent model results are significantly different from the incoherent model by several tens of kelvins. For a 10-cm correlation length, the differences are significant between 0.5 and 1.1 GHz, and less for 1.1-2 GHz. Model results are shown to be able to match the v-pol SMOS data closely and predict the h-pol data for small observation angles.

layered polar firn emission↗