Optimum intercalibration time in synthetic aperture interferometric radiometers: application to SMOS

Abstract

Interpolation strategies for calibration of the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission of the European Space Agency are tested and compared. Calibration strategy (how and how often) is critical in achieving the required performance of any instrument, but it is even more important in very complex instruments such as the new family of synthetic aperture interferometric radiometers and, in particular, in the Microwave Imaging Radiometer by Aperture Synthesis instrument aboard the SMOS mission. On one hand, frequent calibration reduces the available observation time. On the other hand, the calibration requirements for soil moisture applications are more relaxed than those for ocean salinity, so the intercalibration time requirements are very different. Since SMOS drifts are stationary, half-orbit information is available to perform different interpolation strategies. In this letter, these approaches are tested to estimate the calibration parameters between consecutive calibrations. The average root-mean-square phase error is then used to find the optimum interpolation strategy and intercalibration time. On the other side, in real-time instruments, the “future” calibration data are not available at the time of taking the measurements, and predictors are required to estimate the evolution of the calibration parameters from past data only. For these systems, the extended Kalman filter can be used. The intercalibration time in a real-time instrument is evaluated, and the requirements and performances are compared to offline instruments.