Multi Phase Center Processing of Ice Sounding Radar Signals for Across Track Surface Clutter Cancellation: Processor Algorithm and Software Architeture Specification

Abstract

ESA’s POLarimetric Airborne Radar Ice Sounder demonstrator (POLARIS) - build and operated by the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) - operates at P-band and features a multi-phase-center antenna for the purpose of surface clutter suppression. The first data suitable for the development and demonstration of suitable surface clutter cancellation methods were acquired in February 2011 during the IceGrav campaign in Antarctica. The purpose of the present study is to investigate and compare different methods for POLARIS surface clutter cancellation and to implement a Processing Tool to augment the along-track POLARIS processor developed by ESA, thus improving bedrock detectability. The present technical note concerns the algorithm definition and the software architectural design for the proposed Processing Tool for multi-phase center surface clutter cancellation (in the following referred to as MPC Processing Tool). This technical note is divided into five major parts: • The concept of the MPC Processing Tool is presented in section 2, • in section 3 the required input data base is described, • the detailed algorithm description is presented in section 4, • the software architectural design in section 5, • the validation methodology and definition of test data in section 6.