Explore the vast range of titles available.

The recent deployment of 5G technology in the C-band frequency range has raised concerns regarding potential interference with aeronautical radar altimeters. 5G technology utilizes the C-band in the range of 3.7–3.98 GHz, which partially overlaps with the frequency range used by radar altimeters operating in the range of 4.2–4.4 GHz, resulting in an increased possibility of interference between the two systems. In this study, a comprehensive methodology was employed to conduct an interference analysis, investigating the compatibility between 5G wireless systems and radar altimeters. This involved implementing a realistic scenario that replicated the operational interaction between radar altimeters and 5G systems, with the goal of identifying the impact of 5G networks on radar altimeter performance. This paper outlines the scenarios leading to interference, and suggests feasible methods to overcome this issue.

A radar altimeter (RA) is useful to improve autonomous functions such as landing guidance or navigation control of an aircraft. To ensure more precise and safer flights by aircraft, an interferometric RA (IRA) capable of measuring the angle of a target is required. However, the phase-comparison monopulse (PCM) technique used in IRAs has a problem in that an angular ambiguity arises with respect to a target with multiple reflection points, such as terrain. In this paper, we propose an altimetry method for IRAs that reduces the angular ambiguity by evaluating the quality of the phase. The altimetry method as introduced here is sequentially described based on synthetic aperture radar, a delay/Doppler radar altimeter, and PCM techniques. Finally, a phase quality evaluation method is proposed for use in the azimuth estimation process. Aircraft captive flight test results are presented and analyzed, and the validity of the proposed method is examined.

The HY-2A satellite, which is equipped with a radar altimeter and was launched on August 16, 2011, is the first Chinese marine dynamic environmental monitoring satellite. Extracting ocean tides is one of the important applications of the radar altimeter data. The radar altimeter data of the HY-2A satellite from November 1, 2011 to August 16, 2014 are used herein to extract global ocean tides. The constants representing the tidal constituents are extracted by HY-2A RA data with harmonic analysis based on the least squares method. Considering tide aliasing issues, the analysis of the alias periods and alias synodic periods of different tidal constituents shows that only the tidal constituents M 2 , N 2 , and K 2 are retrieved precisely by the HY-2A RA data. The derived tidal constants of the tidal constituents M 2 , N 2 and K 2 are compared to those of tidal gauge data and the TPXO tide model results. The comparison between the derived results and the tidal gauge data shows that the RMSEs of the tidal amplitude and phase lag are 9.6 cm and 13.34°, 2.4 cm and 10.47°, and 8.1 cm and 14.19° for tidal constituents M 2 , N 2 , and K 2 , respectively. The comparisons of the semidiurnal tides with the TPXO model results show that tidal constituents have good consistency with the TPXO model results. These findings confirm the good performance of HY-2A RA for retrieving semidiurnal tides in the global ocean.

Ocean-driven basal melting of Antarctica’s floating ice shelves accounts for about half of their mass loss in steady state, where gains in ice-shelf mass are balanced by losses. Ice-shelf thickness changes driven by varying basal melt rates modulate mass loss from the grounded ice sheet and its contribution to sea level, and the changing meltwater fluxes influence climate processes in the Southern Ocean. Existing continent-wide melt-rate datasets have no temporal variability, introducing uncertainties in sea level and climate projections. Here, we combine surface height data from satellite radar altimeters with satellite-derived ice velocities and a new model of firn-layer evolution to generate a high-resolution map of time-averaged (2010–2018) basal melt rates and time series (1994–2018) of meltwater fluxes for most ice shelves. Total basal meltwater flux in 1994 (1,090 ± 150 Gt yr–1) was similar to the steady-state value (1,100 ± 60 Gt yr–1), but increased to 1,570 ± 140 Gt yr–1 in 2009, followed by a decline to 1,160 ± 150 Gt yr–1 in 2018. For the four largest ‘cold-water’ ice shelves, we partition meltwater fluxes into deep and shallow sources to reveal distinct signatures of temporal variability, providing insights into climate forcing of basal melting and the impact of this melting on the Southern Ocean.Meltwater entering the Southern Ocean from Antarctic ice shelves varies substantially from year to year, with consequences for Southern Ocean circulation and climate, according to remote sensing estimates of ice-shelf basal melting rates.

HY-2A (Haiyang-2A), launched in 2011, is the first ocean dynamic environment satellite of China and is equipped with a radar altimeter as one of the primary payloads. HY-2A shifted the drift orbit in March 2016 and has been accumulating geodetic mission (GM) data for more than three years with 168-day cycle. In this paper, we present the preliminary gravity field inverted by the HY-2A/GM data from March 2016 to December 2017 near Taiwan (21°–26°N, 119°–123°E). The gravity anomaly is computed by Inverse Vening Meinesz (IVM) formula with a one-dimensional FFT method during remove-restore procedure with the EGM2008 gravity model as the reference field. For comparison, CryoSat-2 altimeter data are used to inverse the gravity field near Taiwan Island by the same method. Comparing with the gravity field derived from CryoSat-2, a good agreement between the two data sets is found. The global ocean gravity models and National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) shipboard gravity data also are used to assess the performance of HY-2A/GM data. The evaluations show that HY-2A and CryoSat-2 are at the same level in terms of gravity field recovery and the HY-2A/GM altimeter-derived gravity field has an accuracy of 2.922 mGal. Therefore, we can believe that HY-2A will be a new reliable data source for marine gravity field inversion and has the potentiality to improve the accuracy and resolution of the global marine gravity field.

The HY-2A satellite is China’s first independent oceanic dynamic environmental satellite, and has been operating continuously for more than six years. The satellite’s radar altimeter, which is one of the main loads on the satellite, has the ability to realize all-weather and all-day observations of global sea-surface heights, as well as significant wave heights and sea-surface wind speeds. These observed data have been widely used in marine disaster prevention and reduction, along with resource development, maritime security and other fields. In order to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the multi-year overall observational performances of the HY-2A satellite’s radar altimeter, all of the observational data of the IGDR product from October 26, 2012 to August 27, 2017 were selected in this study for a comprehensive evaluation. The height measurement capability of the HY-2A satellite’s radar altimeter was evaluated using self-crossover and Jason-2 crossover methods. The height discrepancies at the self-crossover point of the HY-2A satellite’s ascending and descending orbits were also calculated. It was found that for the HY-2A satellite’s radar altimeter in global waters under the restriction conditions of ascending and descending orbits, the height anomaly differences were within a range of less than 30 cm. The absolute mean error was determined to be 5.81 cm, and the height anomaly standard deviation was 7.76 cm. Under the conditions of the observational areas being limited within a scope of 60° from the Equator, it was determined that the sea-level height anomaly differences were less than 10 cm at the junction of the ascending and descending orbits, the absolute mean error was 3.95 cm. In addition, the sea-level height anomaly standard deviation was observed to be 4.76 cm. Using a mutual cross method with the Jason-2 satellite, it was found that under the conditions of the observational area being within the scope of 66° from the equator, the height anomaly differences at the junction were less than 30 cm, and the absolute mean error of HY-2A and Jason-2 sea level height anomaly was 5.86 cm, with a standard deviation of 7.52 cm. It was observed that, if within the sea area the sea level height anomaly difference was limited to within 10 cm, then the absolute mean error and standard deviation could reach 4.19 cm and 4.98 cm, respectively. It was confirmed that the HY-2A satellite’s radar altimeter had successfully reached the height measurement level of similar international altimeters. Therefore, it had the ability to meet the needs of marine scientific research and ocean circulation inversions.

The Greenland ice sheet (GrIS) is one of the drivers of global sea level rise and plays a crucial role in understanding the global climate changes. Here, we have estimated and analysed the decadal (between 2013–2016 and 2003–2005) and annual (2014–2015, 2015–2016) volume discharge of ice from the entire GrIS. The 40 Hz Geophysical Data Record product of the unique Ka band (AltiKa) radar altimeter were utilised to derive the elevation, elevation changes and volume changes over the GrIS. To test the first-level accuracy of the result, AltiKa and NASA’s ice, cloud and land elevation satellite digital elevation model (ICESat DEM)-derived elevation were compared, which yielded a correlation value of 0.95. Thereafter, decadal volume changes obtained over the entire GrIS, from the differencing of the AltiKa and ICESat DEM elevation revealed a decreasing rate of 247 km 3 /year. Moreover, basin-wise analysis indicated the maximum decrease in elevation of basin located in the north and north-west region of GrIS. Annual changes obtained by differencing the AltiKa cycle of the same month (so that the surface condition will remain same) between the two consecutive years, specifically during 2014–2015 and 2015–2016 over the entire GrIS contributed volume loss of 187 and 210 km 3 , respectively, indicating an enhanced decrease for a later period.

Background: This article is devoted to the question of correction system implementation. The correction system is necessary to provide the ability of autonomous navigation the unmanned airborne vehicle. We can see a lot of examples of terrain landform correction systems and \"synthetic aperture radar\" - based systems. But in the case of using information about lengthened objects, we have a great opportunity to provide robustness objects, which we can reliably cross during our flight. Nevertheless, these objects should be placed in some on-board system, which will process this information to make a suggestion about unmanned airborne vehicle position. Methods: Recently it was suggested such an algorithm, which is based on the histogram comparison of the reflected signal of the pulse radar altimeter. It is well known that the distribution of the reflected signal of the pulse radar is depend on the terrain from which this signal was reflected. Therefore, the idea of using this information as the parameter, which helps to define the terrain type, is described in this paper. The comparison of the histograms (one is etalon, other is current histogram) in this algorithm is based on the evaluation of the intersection area of these histograms. Results: The main part of this paper reveals how this idea could be implemented in the real navigation system structure. The question of performance is also discussed there. It is shown a useful case of implementation of this algorithm. Conclusion: The suggested algorithm could be implemented in the real on-board system and it allows us to increase the accuracy of autonomous navigation without implementing any additional hardware decisions.

The design of a frequency-modulated continuous wave (FMCW) radar altimeter with wide altitude range and low measurement errors is presented. Wide altitude range is achieved by employing the optical delay in the transmitting path to reduce the dynamic range of the measuring altitude. Transmitting power and receiver gain are also controlled to enable the dynamic range of the received power to be reduced. In addition, low measurement errors are obtained by improving the sweep linearity using the direct digital synthesiser (DDS) and minimising the phase noise employing the reference clock (Ref_CLK) as the offset frequency of the phase-locked loop (PLL).

Snow depth on sea ice is an Essential Climate Variable and a major source of uncertainty in satellite altimetry‐derived sea ice thickness. During winter of the MOSAiC Expedition, the “KuKa” dual‐frequency, fully polarized Ku‐ and Ka‐band radar was deployed in “stare” nadir‐looking mode to investigate the possibility of combining these two frequencies to retrieve snow depth. Three approaches were investigated: dual‐frequency, dual‐polarization and waveform shape, and compared to independent snow depth measurements. Novel dual‐polarization approaches yielded r2 values up to 0.77. Mean snow depths agreed within 1 cm, even for data sub‐banded to CryoSat‐2 SIRAL and SARAL AltiKa bandwidths. Snow depths from co‐polarized dual‐frequency approaches were at least a factor of four too small and had a r2 0.15 or lower. r2 for waveform shape techniques reached 0.72 but depths were underestimated. Snow depth retrievals using polarimetric information or waveform shape may therefore be possible from airborne/satellite radar altimeters. Plain Language Summary Data collected using a surface‐based radar instrument on sea ice during the MOSAiC Arctic expedition were used to develop new techniques to estimate the depth of the overlying snow. We used different polarizations of the radiation to detect the depths of the upper and lower snow surfaces, and subtracted them to give snow depth. These depths agreed well with an independently collected snow depth data set. Estimates of snow depth using two different radar frequencies were less accurate, whilst using information of the shape of the returning pulse of radiation also showed a relationship with the independent snow depths, though not as strong as the polarization method. These results indicate that polarimetry (using a new satellite mission) and/or waveform shape (using existing missions) could be used to estimate snow depth on sea ice from airborne or satellite platforms. Key Points Novel polarization‐based snow depth estimation techniques were developed using surface‐based Ku‐ and Ka‐band polarimetric radar altimeter data The dominant scattering surface was the air/snow and snow/ice interface in co‐ and cross‐polarized data, respectively, at both frequencies Radar‐derived snow depths agreed with independent measurements, with r2 up to 0.77 and accuracy of 1 cm for best‐performing techniques