NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

The PSR/A scanhead provides either full-Stokes vector or tri-polarimetric sensitivity at the radiometric bands of 10.7, 18.7, and 37 GHz, and thus is well suited for the NPOESS Integrated Program Office’s internal government (IG) studies of ocean surface wind vector measurements. PSR data has been used to demonstrate the first-ever retrieval of ocean surface wind fields using conically-scanned polarimetric radiometer data. The results have suggested that the NPOESS specification for wind vector accuracy will be achievable with a polarimetric two-look system.

The Polarimetric Scanning Radiometer (PSR) is a versatile airborne microwave imaging radiometer developed by the Georgia Institute of Technology and the NOAA Environmental Technology Laboratory (now NOAA/ESRL PSD) for the purpose of obtaining polarimetric microwave emission imagery of the Earth's oceans, land, ice, clouds, and precipitation. The PSR is the first airborne scanned polarimetric imaging radiometer suitable for post-launch satellite calibration and validation of a variety of future spaceborne passive microwave sensors. The capabilities of the PSR for airborne simulation are continuously being expanded through the development of new mission-specific scanheads to provide airborne post-launch simulation of a variety of existing and future U.S. sensors, including CMIS, ATMS, AMSU, SSMIS, WindSat, TMI, RAMEX, and GEM.

The basic concept of the PSR is a set of polarimetrc radiometers housed within a gimbal-mounted scanhead drum. The scanhead drum is rotatable by the gimbal positioner so that the radiometers (Figure 2.) can view any angle within ~70° elevation of nadir at any azimuthal angle (a total of 1.32 pi sr solid angle), as well as external hot and ambient calibration targets. The configuration thus supports conical, cross-track, along-track, fixed-angle stare, and spotlight scan modes. The PSR was designed to provide several specific and unique observational capabilities from various aircraft platforms. The original design was based upon several observational objectives:

1. To provide fully polarimetric (four Stokes' parameters: Tv, Th, TU, and TV) imagery of upwelling thermal emissions at several of the most important microwave sensing frequencies (10.7, 18.7, 37.0, and 89.0 GHz), thus providing measurements from X to W band;
2. To provide the above measurements with absolute accuracy for all four Stokes' parameters of better than 1 K for Tv and Th, and 0.1 K for TU and TV;
3. To provide radiometric imaging with both fore and aft look capability (rather than single swath observations);
4. To provide conical, cross-track, along-track, and spotlight mode scanning capabilities; and
5. To provide imaging resolutions appropriate for high resolution studies of precipitating and non-precipitating clouds, mesoscale ocean surface features, and satellite calibration/validation at Nyquist spatial sampling.

The original system has been extended - as discussed below - to greatly exceed the original design objectives by providing additional radiometric channels and expanded platform capabilities.

The PSR scanhead was designed for in-flight operation without the need for a radome (i.e., in direct contact with the aircraft slipstream), thus allowing precise calibration and imaging with no superimposed radome emission signatures. Moreover, the conical scan mode allows the entire modified Stokes' vector to be observed without polarization mixing.

A non-mechanical optical switch is provided for alternately switching a monochromatic or quasi-monochromatic light beam along two optical paths. A polarizer polarizes light into a single, e.g., vertical component which is then rapidly modulated into vertical and horizontal components by a polarization modulator. A polarization beam splitter then reflects one of these components along one path and transmits the other along the second path. In the specific application of gas filter correlation radiometry, one path is directed through a vacuum cell and one path is directed through a gas correlation cell containing a desired gas. Reflecting mirrors cause these two paths to intersect at a second polarization beam splitter which reflects one component and transmits the other to recombine them into a polarization modulated beam which can be detected by an appropriate single sensor.

In July 2005, the Johns Hopkins University, Applied Physics Laboratory began “Pathfinder Airborne Radar Ice Sounder (PARIS)” funded under the NASA Instrument Incubator Program (IIP). The primary objective of this project was the first feasibility demonstration of successful radar sounding of ice sheet layering and bottom topography from a high-altitude platform. Major contributing factors included a high-fidelity 150-MHz radar, supported by along-track partially- coherent processing. “High-fidelity” implies very wide dynamic range, extreme linearity, and very low sidelobes generated by the transmitted pulse. “Partially- coherent processing” implies the delay-Doppler technique, previously proven in airborne radar altimeter and low-altitude radar ice sounding embodiments. The radar was mounted on the NASA P-3, and deployed on a mission over the Greenland ice sheet in the spring of 2007. Data were recorded on board as well as displayed in flight on a quick-look processor. The data subsequently were processed in the laboratory to quantify performance characteristics, including dynamic range, sidelobe level control, and contrast improvement from the delay-Doppler algorithm.

The transmit waveform is a 5-MHz bandwidth chirp at a 150-MHz operating frequency with a trapezoidal envelope. Such severe weighting is essential to reduce the ringing commonly associated with the initial on-off transition of weakly-weighted waveforms. The 180-W (peak) linear-FM pulse has ~6 MHz bandwidth. The amplifier is class AB to help ensure the high linearity needed to suppress the internal clutter (sidelobes) generated by the chirp waveform. Laboratory measurements of the driver and power amplifier show excellent linearity with a two-tone third-order inter-modulation of at least -26 dBc at peak power.

There is no down conversion or IF signal within the receiver, greatly simplifying the design, and eliminating most potential sources of distortion and intermodulation. Upon reception, the radar A/D operates on the RF signal directly out of the LNA. The sample rate is well below Nyquist, but it is chosen so that the resulting spectra shift an alias of the main signal to offset baseband in a clear channel. The receiver includes variable attenuators to adjust the voltage range of the signal input to the analog-to- digital converter as well as sensitivity time control (STC) to increase the effective dynamic range of the response as a function of depth of penetration. The overall noise figure of the receiver is less than 5.5 dB with a gain of over 60 dB and a 45 dBm third-order intercept point.

The digital components consist of a field programmable gate array (FPGA) radar synchronizer, a direct digital synthesizer (DDS), and an under-sampling analog-to-digital converter (ADC). All components of the digital subsection are clocked by a stable 66.6 MHz reference oscillator. The radar data are time-tagged by reference to GPS. The flights included passes over the summit ridge, from which results show internal layering, and the bottom profile at several km depth.

The PAN-CIGAR chemical ionization mass spectrometer which measures up to 7 PAN species simultaneously and semi-continuously with a time resolution of ~2 seconds. The method is based on the detection of the acylperoxy radicals formed from thermal decomposition of the PAN species at the inlet by reacting them with iodide ions, which are formed by passing methyl iodide diluted in nitrogen through an α–particle source. The reaction of the peroxy acyl radicals with I- forms IO and the acyl ion, which is detected using a quadrupole mass spectrometer (Extrel) at a mass to charge ratio of 59 in the case of PAN. The method is very specific for PAN type compounds and the limit of detection is ~1 pptv/s or better for most PAN species. The instrument employs a realtime continuous calibration using isotopically labeled PAN produced in-situ by a photolytic calibration source.

The MASTER is similar to the MAS, with the thermal bands modified to more closely match the NASA EOS ASTER (Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer) satellite instrument, which was launched in 1998. It is intended primarily to study geologic and other Earth surface properties. Flying on both high and low altitude aircraft, the MASTER has been operational since early 1998.

Instrument Type: Multispectral Imager
Measurements: VNIR/SWIR/MWIR/LWIR Imagery

NASA’s Land, Vegetation and Ice Sensor (LVIS) is a wide-swath, high-altitude, full-waveform airborne laser altimeter and camera sensor suite designed to provide elevation and surface structure measurements over hundreds of thousands of square kilometers. LVIS is an efficient and cost-effective capability for mapping land, water, and ice surface topography, vegetation height and vertical structure, and surface dynamics. The LVIS Facility is comprised of two high-altitude scanning lidar systems plus cameras that have been integrated on numerous NASA, NSF, and commercial aircraft platforms providing a diverse and flexible capability to meet a broad range of science needs. The newest Facility lidar (LVIS-F) began operations in 2017 using a 4,000 Hz laser, and an earlier 1,000 Hz sensor built in 2010 has undergone various upgrades (LVIS-Classic). High-resolution, commercial off-the-shelf cameras are co-mounted with LVIS lidars providing geotagged image coverage across the LVIS swath. LVIS sensors have flown extensively for a wide range of science applications and have been installed on over a dozen different aircraft, most recently on NASA’s high-altitude Gulfstream-V jet based at Johnson Space Center

The LVIS lidars are full-waveform laser altimeters, meaning that the systems digitally record both the outgoing and reflected laser pulse shapes providing a true 3-dimensional record of the surface and centimeter-level range precision. Multiple science data products are available for each footprint, including the geolocated waveform vector, sub-canopy topography, canopy or structure height, surface complexity, and others. LVIS lidars map a ±6 degree wide data swath centered on nadir (e.g., at an operating altitude of 10 km, the data swath is 2 km wide). They are designed to fly at higher altitudes than what is typical for commercial lidars in order to map a wider swath with low incidence angles, avoid the need for terrain following, while operating at much higher speeds that maximize the range of the aircraft. Recent data campaigns include deployments to Antarctica, Greenland, Canada, Alaska, the conterminous US, Central America, French Guiana, and Gabon.

The Millimeter-wave Imaging Radiometer (MIR) is a cross-track-scanning radiometer that measures radiation at nine frequencies. In every scanning cycle of about 3 seconds in duration, it views two external calibration targets. MIR responds predominantly to atmospheric parameters like water vapor, clouds, and precipitation.