Ricerc@Sapienza

Space and airborne remote sensing of natural surfaces have been demonstrated to provide valuable information for several applications in different fields, such as climatology, oceanography, flooding and agricultural monitoring, just to mention but a few. In this frame, an accurate and flexible characterization of the electromagnetic scattering is considered a fundamental step, requiring a sound electromagnetic background as well as interdisciplinary expertise.
Based on numerical and experimental modeling, this research project proposes an extensive study of the bistatic scattering generated by natural surfaces, such as the ocean, the anisotropic and vegetated soils. Extensive investigations on the theoretical capabilities of different configurations, designed by considering a transmitting and receiving antenna not located in the same place, will be conducted. Moving from the activities developed in the framework of the ESA mission SAOCOM-CS, on which this investigator is concluding a 1-year research assignment, the potential improvement offered by bistatic configurations with respect to much known monostatic surveys onto the soil moisture estimation, will be investigated. Improvements achievable on wind fields characterization over the ocean and on the vegetation biomass monitoring will be considered as well. In this frame, based on the extension of well-established electromagnetic models, whose validity has not yet accurately investigated for bistatic geometry, efficient and reliable numerical codes will be developed, taking into account different polarizations.
Overall, the proposed research represents a fundamental step towards the assessment of the capabilities offered by bistatic radar observations, and to gather valuable information for the design of future, high-science and high-application value, spatial missions. This project is in line with the next 1-year assignment for which the proposer has been already declared winner (procedure no. 8/2017, DIET Dpt).