Characterization of Terrain Scattered Interference from Space-Borne Active Sensor: A Case Study in Sentinel-1 Image

The contest against electromagnetic spectrum are making the electromagnetic environment more and more congested. Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) requires larger bandwidth to obtain finer resolution, and thus inevitably affected by radio emitters sharing the same frequency band. Most of the radio frequency interference (RFI) originated from the terrestrial emitters, while there are also rare cases with interfering signals from space-borne satellites. In this paper, we analyzed the mechanism of terrain scattered interference (TSI) from space-borne RFI sources, and provide a case study of the interference signatures in Sentinel-1 data.

1. INTRODUCTION

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is an active microwave remote instrument that can provide essential data critical to understanding of global environmental change, which are important for a wide range of scientific, commercial, and defense applications. The proliferation of wireless radio technology makes the electromagnetic environment getting more congested and complex. It increases the likelihood of interference to active remote sensing systems, especially for high-resolution SAR systems with large bandwidth like several hundred megahertz [1].