Keywords

brightness, conical, incidence, radiometer

Abstract

There are numerous applications for airborne imaging systems in remote sensing, and this thesis deals with a new microwave polarimetric radiometer technique for inferring ocean surface wind direction [3, 5, 7]. This technique is based upon the anisotropy of the polarized ocean blackbody emissions at microwave frequencies relative to the azimuth angle between the microwave radiometer antenna "look" direction and the direction of the wind. Because of the weak wind direction signature, it is important that all systematic brightness temperature (Tb) errors be eliminated, especially those that vary with the radiometer antenna scan position (look direction). This can be accomplished either in hardware implementation or through data processing corrections. Unfortunately, the misalignment of the axis of rotation for a conical-scanning imager can introduce such azimuthally dependent errors of significant magnitude. As the title suggests, the analysis of the resulting Tb errors caused by static and dynamic time-varying aircraft attitude errors is the main thrust of this thesis. In this thesis, we present analytical models developed to account for platform attitude changes on measured ocean microwave brightness temperature collected by a conically scanning radiometer. Data processing procedures for removing unwanted variations in ocean brightness temperatures are outlined. The analytical models are validated by making comparisons between modelled and measured Tb's obtained by the Conically Scanning Two-Look Airborne Radiometer (C-STAR). Results demonstrated that the analytical Tb model can accurately predict the measured polarized Tb's under actual flight conditions.

Notes

If this is your thesis or dissertation, and want to learn how to access it or for more information about readership statistics, contact us at STARS@ucf.edu

Graduation Date

2006

Semester

Spring

Advisor

Jones, W. Linwood

Degree

Master of Science in Electrical Engineering (M.S.E.E.)

College

College of Engineering and Computer Science

Department

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Degree Program

Electrical Engineering

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

CFE0000926

URL

http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0000926

Language

English

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Access Status

Masters Thesis (Open Access)

Download

Share

COinS