Abstract's details

Sentinel-6 Poseidon-4 L1B simulator: end-to-end performance evaluation from model-based waveforms

Lisa Recchia (Aresys srl, Italy)

CoAuthors

Mieke Kuschnerus (ESA - ESTEC, The Netherlands); Michele Scagliola (Aresys srl, Italy); Davide Giudici (Aresys srl, Italy); Roberta Bertoni (ESA - ESTEC, The Netherlands)

Event: 2017 Ocean Surface Topography Science Team Meeting

Session: Others (poster only)

Presentation type: Type Poster

Contribution: PDF file

Abstract:

Lisa Recchia, Aresys
Michele Scagliola, Aresys
Davide Giudici, Aresys
Mieke Kuschnerus, ESA
Roberta Bertoni, ESA

The Sentinel-6/Jason-CS mission is the latest successor of the Jason altimetry series and part of the ESA Copernicus Programme. Its main objective is to continue the long-term climate data record of sea level measurements that started in 1992 with the Topex/Poseidon mission, followed by the Jason series. Sentinel-6 will operate in the same reference orbit as the current Jason-2 system and its altimeter POSEIDON-4 will retrieve sea level, wind speed and wave height measurements in near real time. POSEIDON-4 is a new generation of altimeter based on the SRAL instrument of the Sentinel 3 mission and it will be able to operate in the so-called interleaved mode. The interleaved mode allows not only to produce high resolution (HR) and low resolution (LR) measurements at the same time, but also increases the number of single look waveforms for each measurement and therefore reduces the noise effects.
In the framework of the development studies for the Sentinel-6 Poseidon-4 and to support the on going performance analysis of the mission, a level 1B (L1B) simulator has been developed with the main objective to provide L1B data sets over periods longer than an orbit. The flexible design of the simulator also allows assisting with studies into concepts for other possible future radar altimeter missions.
This poster is presenting the architecture of the simulator as well as the first simulated data sets and a preliminary performance assessment. The design of the simulator was driven mainly by the goal to efficiently generate long scale data sets. To this aim, a novel semi-analytical model for HR waveforms has been developed to manage the trade-off between runtime performance, accuracy and flexibility of the models. The echo impairments in the form of speckle contribution and thermal noise are based on theoretical models as well. The fully configurability of impairments and errors injections allows for the evaluation of each single contribution to the end-to-end performance on geophysical parameters retrieval from both LR and HR waveforms. In fact, by comparison of the geophysical parameters provided as input to the simulation and the corresponding parameters retrieved by analysis of the L1B products generated by the simulator, the expected end-to-end performance of the Sentinel-6 mission can be assessed.

 

Poster show times:

Room Start Date End Date
Concerto Ballroom Thu, Oct 26 2017,14:00 Thu, Oct 26 2017,18:00
Lisa Recchia
Aresys srl
Italy
lisa.recchia@aresys.it