Simulation studies for the NASA scatterometer on NROSS

Abstract

A methodology for the design of a spaceborne radar scatterometer system configuration which includes parameters such as antenna pointing angles, antenna azimuth angles, antenna polarization, and measurement swath locations is presented. The methodology was applied to the NASA Scatterometer (NSCAT). The performance tradeoff studies on the NSCAT system configuration required development of a computer simulation to estimate wind retrieval accuracy for a given system configuration; and a series of metrics to quantify the simulation results and allow direct comparison of the performance for different configurations.