GNSS-R Derived Centimetric Sea Topography: An Airborne Experiment Demonstration

The results of two airborne experiments performed to test the precision and the relative accuracy of the conventional Global Navigation Satellite Systems Reflectometry (GNSS-R) technique employing only the C/A code are presented. The first and the second experiments demonstrate, respectively, a 17 cm precision for a 500 m flight altitude with a 8 km along-track spatial resolution, and a 6 cm precision for a 3000 m flight altitude with a 6.6 km along-track spatial resolution. In both, the Relative Mean Dynamic Topography (RMDT) is compared with results derived from traditional radar altimetry provided by Jason-2. The Root Mean Square (RMS) of the RMDT difference between both measurement systems is 48 cm for the first flight, and 198 cm for the second flight. During the second flight, the feasibility of the proposed technique to measure the sea slopes is demonstrated by superposing over the aircraft ground track the measured sea surface height with the geoid undulations, which are about 1 meter.

[1]  D. W. Allan,et al.  Statistics of atomic frequency standards , 1966 .

[2]  Antonio Rius,et al.  A GPS-Reflections Receiver That Computes Doppler/Delay Maps in Real Time , 2007, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.

[3]  M. Martín-Neira.  A pasive reflectometry and interferometry system (PARIS) application to ocean altimetry , 1993 .

[4]  Valery U. Zavorotny,et al.  Scattering of GPS signals from the ocean with wind remote sensing application , 2000, IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote. Sens..

[5]  Richard K. Moore,et al.  Microwave Remote Sensing, Active and Passive , 1982 .

[6]  Manuel Martín-Neira,et al.  Paris Altimetry Precision Prediction with Galileo Signals-in-Space , 2008, IGARSS 2008 - 2008 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium.

[7]  Manuel Martín-Neira,et al.  PARIS Interferometric Technique proof of concept: Sea surface altimetry measurements , 2012, 2012 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium.

[8]  Manuel Martín-Neira,et al.  The PARIS Ocean Altimeter In-Orbit Demonstrator , 2011, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.

[9]  Manuel Martín-Neira,et al.  The proof of concept for 3-cm Altimetry using the Paris Interferometric Technique , 2010, 2010 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium.

[10]  Edward J. Walsh,et al.  Pulse Compression and Sea Level Tracking in Satellite Altimetry , 1989 .

[11]  G. Ruffini,et al.  A revisit to the GNSS-R code range precision , 2006 .

[12]  Stephen J. Katzberg,et al.  Wind speed measurement using forward scattered GPS signals , 2002, IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote. Sens..

[13]  Scott Gleason,et al.  Fading statistics and sensing accuracy of ocean scattered GNSS and altimetry signals , 2010 .

[14]  E. Cardellach,et al.  GNSS‐R ground‐based and airborne campaigns for ocean, land, ice, and snow techniques: Application to the GOLD‐RTR data sets , 2011 .

[15]  C. Zuffada,et al.  5‐cm‐Precision aircraft ocean altimetry using GPS reflections , 2002 .

[16]  Cinzia Zuffada,et al.  First spaceborne observation of an Earth‐reflected GPS signal , 2002 .

[17]  Cinzia Zuffada,et al.  Theoretical description of a bistatic system for ocean altimetry using the GPS signal , 2003 .

[18]  Manuel Martín-Neira,et al.  Altimetric Analysis of the Sea-Surface GPS-Reflected Signals , 2010, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.