A Generic Level 1 Simulator for Spaceborne GNSS-R Missions and Application to GEROS-ISS Ocean Reflectometry

• Published in: IEEE journal of selected topics in applied earth observations and remote sensing Vol. 10; no. 10; pp. 4645 - 4659
• Main Authors: Park, Hyuk, Camps, Adriano, Pascual, Daniel, Kang, Yujin, Onrubia, Raul, Querol, Jorge, Alonso-Arroyo, Alberto
• Format: Journal Article Publication
• Language: English
• Published: Piscataway IEEE 01.10.2017; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Altimetry; and Scatterometry onboard the International Space Station (GEROS-ISS); Antenna arrays; Aparells i instruments; Artificial satellites; Computer simulation; Consolidation; Data processing; Data simulation; Earth; Enginyeria de la telecomunicació; Equipment and supplies; Geosensing; Global navigation satellite system; Global Navigation Satellites System (GNSS) reflectometry; Global Positioning System; GNSS (Sistema de navegació); GNSS rEflectometry; Instruments; International Space Station; Mathematical model; Microprocessors; Missions; Navigation; Navigation satellites; Oceanografia; Oceanography; Parameters; Payloads; Radio Occultation; Radiocomunicació i exploració electromagnètica; Receiving antennas; Reflectometers; Reflectometry; Remote sensing; Satellites; Satèl·lits artificials; Satèl·lits i ràdioenllaços; Scatterometry onboard the International Space Station (GEROS-ISS); Sea measurements; Sea state; Simulator; Simulators; Spaceborne remote sensing; Àrees temàtiques de la UPC
• ISSN: 1939-1404; 2151-1535; 2151-1535
• DOI: 10.1109/JSTARS.2017.2720625

In the past decade Global Navigation Satellites System Reflectometry (GNSS-R) has emerged as a new technique for earth remote sensing for various applications, such as ocean altimetry and sea state monitoring. After the success of the GNSS-R demonstrator payloads aboard the UK-DMC or TDS-1 satellites; at present, there are several missions planned to carry GNSS reflectometers. The GNSS rEflectometry, Radio Occultation, and Scatterometry onboard International Space Station (GEROS-ISS) is an innovative ISS experiment exploiting GNSS-R technique to measure key parameters of ocean, land, and ice surfaces. For GEROSISS mission, the European Space Agency (ESA) supported the study of GNSS-R assessment of requirements and consolidation of retrieval algorithms (GARCA). For this, it was required to accurately simulate the GEROS-ISS measurements including the whole range of parameters affecting the observation conditions and the instrument, which is called GEROS-SIM. To meet these requirements, the PAU/PARIS end-to-end performance simulator (P2 EPS) previously developed by UPC BarcelonaTech was used as the baseline building blocks for the level 1 (L1) processor of GEROS-SIM. P 2 EPS is a flexible tool, and is capable of systematically simulating the GNSS-R observations for spaceborne GNSS-R missions. Thanks to the completeness and flexibility, the instrument-to-L1 data module of GEROS-SIM could be implemented by proper modification and update of P 2 EPS. The developed GEROS-SIM was verified and validated in the GARCA study as comparing to the TDS-1 measurements. This paper presents the design, implementation, and results of the GEROS-SIM L1 module in a generic way to be applied to GNSS-R instruments.