Experimental Flight Verification of Radio Frequency Interference Mitigation Method in MICAP L-Band Radiometer

Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) is a significant limiting factor in the retrieval of geophysical parameters measured by microwave radiometers. Microwave Imager Combined Active and Passive (MICAP), which is a package of active and passive microwave instruments including L/C/K-band Microwave Interferometric Radiometer (MIR) and L-band scatterometer, has been approved to be taken on-board in the Chinese Ocean Salinity Mission. RFI is a serious threat to MICAP, especially to the L-band MIR. In the first part of this paper, on-orbit RFI mitigation method in MICAP L-band MIR is proposed, which is detected in time domain, frequency domain, probability spectrum, polarization domain, and RFI is removed in time domain and frequency domain. Secondly, desktop experiment of this RFI mitigation method is proposed based on MICAP L-band MIR. Thirdly, a flight experiment of this RFI mitigation method is demonstrated before MICAP launch. As shown in this paper, MICAP L-band MIR will be the first MIR with on-orbit RFI mitigation capacity.