Abstract
Satellite remote sensing has demonstrated its potential to provide measurements of weather conditions on a global scale as well as airborne remote sensing on a local scale. Near-surface wind measurements over the sea are very important for operational oceanography, as well as for meteorology and navigation. Wind and wave measurements by those remote sensing instruments are based on features of microwave backscattering from the water surface. To study the microwave backscattering signature of the water surface from aircraft, an airborne scatterometer is used. The measurements are typically performed at either a circle track flight using a fixed fan-beam antenna or a rectilinear track flight using a rotating antenna. For such an airborne measurement of winds, antennas with comparatively narrow beams are commonly used. Unfortunately, a microwave narrow-beam antenna has considerable size at Ku-, X-, and C-bands that makes its placing on an aircraft difficult, especially on a seaplane or an amphibious aircraft. Therefore, a better way needs to be found. At least two options can be proposed. The first option is to apply airborne scatterometers with wide-beam antennas as it can lead to reduction of the antenna size. The second option is to use modified conventional navigation instruments of the aircraft in a scatterometer mode, which seems more preferable.
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Nekrasov, A. (2021). Introduction. In: Foundations for Innovative Application of Airborne Radars. SpringerBriefs in Earth Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62942-7_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62942-7_1
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