Fran Fabra

Consolidating the Precision of Interferometric GNSS-R Ocean Altimetry Using Airborne Experimental Data

This paper revises the precision of altimetric measurements made with signals of the Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) reflected (GNSS-R) off the sea surface. In particular, we investigate the performance of two different GNSS-R techniques, referred to here as the clean-replica and interferometric approaches. The former has been used in GNSS-R campaigns since the late 1990s, while the latter has only been tested once, in 2010, from an 18-m-high bridge in static conditions and estuary waters. In 2011, we conducted an airborne experiment over the Baltic Sea at 3-km altitude to test the interferometric concept in dynamic and rougher conditions. The campaign also flew a clean-replica GNSS-R instrument with the purpose of comparing both approaches. We have analyzed with detail the data sets to extract and validate models of the noise present in both techniques. After predicting the noise models and verifying these with aircraft data, we used them to obtain the precision of altimetric measurements and to extrapolate the performance analysis to spaceborne scenarios. The main conclusions are that the suggested noise model agrees with measured data and that the GNSS-R interferometric technique is at least two times better in precision than a technique based on using a clean replica of the publicly available GPS code. This represents a factor of at least four times finer along-track resolution. A precision of 22 cm in 65-km along-track averaging should be achievable using near-nadir interferometric GNSS-R observations from a low earth orbiter.

GEROS-ISS: GNSS REflectometry, Radio Occultation, and Scatterometry Onboard the International Space Station

GEROS-ISS stands for GNSS REflectometry, radio occultation, and scatterometry onboard the International Space Station (ISS). It is a scientific experiment, successfully proposed to the European Space Agency in 2011. The experiment as the name indicates will be conducted on the ISS. The main focus of GEROS-ISS is the dedicated use of signals from the currently available Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) in L-band for remote sensing of the Earth with a focus to study climate change. Prime mission objectives are the determination of the altimetric sea surface height of the oceans and of the ocean surface mean square slope, which is related to sea roughness and wind speed. These geophysical parameters are derived using reflected GNSS signals (GNSS reflectometry, GNSS-R). Secondary mission goals include atmosphere/ionosphere sounding using refracted GNSS signals (radio occultation, GNSS-RO) and remote sensing of land surfaces using GNSS-R. The GEROS-ISS mission objectives and its design, the current status, and ongoing activities are reviewed and selected scientific and technical results of the GEROS-ISS preparation phase are described.

Phase Altimetry With Dual Polarization GNSS-R Over Sea Ice

This paper evaluates the potential use of reflected signals from Global Navigation Satellite Systems as a source of opportunity for the retrieval of absolute ellipsoidal heights over sea ice. Accurate estimation of the surface level would be helpful for the determination of the ice thickness, a key parameter for classification and characterization of sea ice masses. Our analysis is based on altimetric estimations from the coherent differential phase between direct and both cross- and co-polar reflected signals. For this purpose, GPS waveforms have been collected from a fixed platform in Greenland, monitoring the complete process of sea ice formation and melting during a 7-month period. The variability of coherent phase samples and polarimetric measurements are compared with in situ observations to make a realistic rough characterization of the ice cover. The retrieved sea ice surface height estimates are then evaluated against an Arctic tide model, ice surface temperature from moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer, and the laser altimetry product from ICESat.

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.

PARIS Interferometric Technique proof of concept: Sea surface altimetry measurements

We report preliminary results of an aircraft experiment aimed to proof the PARIS Interferometric Technique. The experiment was performed in the Gulf of Finland during a two hours flight. We installed a PARIS Interferometric Receiver together with a GOLD-RTR instrument to collect reflected C/A, P(Y) and M-code GPS signals. The collected data has been analyzed to produce altimetric observables with both techniques.

Sea surface topography retrieved from GNSS reflectometry phase data of the GEOHALO flight mission

Sea surface topography observations are deduced from an airborne reflectometry experiment. A GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) receiver dedicated for reflectometry was set up aboard the German HALO (High Altitude Long Range) research aircraft. Flights were conducted over the Mediterranean Sea about 3500 m above sea level. A signal path model divided into large- and small-scale contributions is used for phase altimetry. The results depict geoid undulations and resolve anomalies of the sea surface topography. For the whole experiment 65 tracks over the Mediterranean Sea are retrieved and compared with a topography model. Tracks differ between right-handed and left-handed circular polarization. The difference, however, is not significant for this study. Precision and spatial resolution decrease disproportionately at low elevations. Eight tracks with centimeter precision are obtained between 11° and 33° of elevation. At higher elevation angles the number of tracks is significantly reduced due to surface roughness. In future such retrievals could contribute to ocean eddy detection.

Monitoring sea-ice and dry snow with GNSS reflections

GPS reflected signals have become a source of opportunity for remote sensing of the Earths suface. In this work, we present several capabilities of this technique in two different polar environments: Greenland and Antarctica. The first part is dedicated to the retrieval of sea-ice properties, giving emphasis to the study of the coherent phase for altimetric and roughness estimations, and polarimetric measurements for the determination of the ice salinity variation. The results show good agreement with a tide model and daily ice charts. On the second part, some preliminary results and analysis strategies to retrieve dry snow signatures are presented.

Typhoon Wind Speed Observation Utilizing Reflected Signals from BeiDou GEO Satellites

Typhoon monitoring utilizing reflected GNSS signals is a new application of GNSS-R technique. Coastal observations are an efficient way for the model of geophysical parameters retrieval in Typhoon and identified as a promising complementary technique with respect to the satellite instruments. However, the relationship between GNSS-R observables and the sea surface wind speed in Typhoon could not be fully described through theoretical models for the coastal regions. Meanwhile the instability of the coastal GNSS-R geometry makes it difficult to optimize an empirically calibrated model. The BeiDou GEO satellites could provide stable geometry and better coverage capability in mid- and low-latitude region where most of the typhoons occur. Based on this consideration, ocean reflected signals from BeiDou GEO satellites are exploited for coastal Typhoon observation in this paper. The relationship between reflected waveform parameters, such as coherent time, and the ocean geophysics parameters, such as wind speed is analysed. Preliminary analysis of the BeiDou reflected signal collected during the TIGRIS experiment shows good agreement between the GNSS-R measured wind speeds and the in situ measurements, the average deviation is 1.6 m/s with the root-mean-square error of 2.4 m/s.

Initial Results of Typhoon Wind Speed Observation Using Coastal GNSS-R of BeiDou GEO Satellite

Sea surface-reflected signals of global navigation satellite system (GNSS) were collected during a coastal experiment to evaluate the potential use of these signals on typhoon investigation. This work focuses on processing the signals from BeiDou geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) satellites and assessing the sensitivities of waveform observables to the wind speed evolution during the typhoons. After the processing of the raw samples, both the delay- and spectral-related observables are obtained from the complex waveforms and then compared with in situ wind measurement collected during two tropical cyclones. Results from the data analysis are presented, confirming that the proposed observables are well correlated with the wind speed evolution and suitable for coastal wind speed retrieval.

An empirical approach towards characterization of dry snowlayers using GNSS-R

We present in this paper an empirical approach for the characterization of the internal layering of dry snow masses by means of GNSS-R. A forward model has been designed for reconstructing reflected waveforms given a dry snow profile and geometry (elevation and elevation-rate), as a sum of multiple responses from different layers. To extract the internal information, Fourier transforms of time series of waveforms are computed to generate lag-holograms. The frequency stripes that appear are related to the depths of the contributing snow layers. The same analysis has been done with real data, showing with agreement with the models.