Impact of Ionospheric Scintillation on Spaceborne SAR Observations Studied Using GNSS

Xiaoqing Pi, Franz J. Meyer, Kancham Chotoo, Anthony Freeman, Ronald G. Caton, and Christopher T. Bridgwood

Abstract:	A survey of artifacts seen in JAXA’s Phase Array type L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (PALSAR) data over South America is reported in this paper. A significant impact on the radar data during a low solar activity year is revealed: about 14% of the surveyed PALSAR images (totally 2779) are affected by the artifacts during a month and the artifacts occur on 74.2% of the surveyed days. The characteristics of the artifacts have led to a consideration that the artifacts are a consequence of ionospheric scintillation. This raises not only a concern about scintillation effects on radar but also a question about active scintillation conditions during a low solar activity year. To assess and verify the scintillation conditions, GPS data collected from the constellation of FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC satellites and three ground-based GPS networks are processed and analyzed. The space and ground GPS data provides a global context and regional dense coverage, respectively, of ionospheric scintillation measurements. It is concluded that even during a low solar activity year, L-band scintillation at low latitudes can occur frequently and affect L-band SAR significantly.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 25th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2012) September 17 - 21, 2012 Nashville Convention Center, Nashville, Tennessee Nashville, TN
Pages:	1998 - 2006
Cite this article:	Pi, Xiaoqing, Meyer, Franz J., Chotoo, Kancham, Freeman, Anthony, Caton, Ronald G., Bridgwood, Christopher T., "Impact of Ionospheric Scintillation on Spaceborne SAR Observations Studied Using GNSS," Proceedings of the 25th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2012), Nashville, TN, September 2012, pp. 1998-2006.
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