Ricerc@Sapienza

The next generation of spatial missions for Earth observation are designed to improve the understanding of the complex phenomena that affect the life of our Planet, and to provide valuable information for a broad class of applications, such as, e.g., oceanography, climatology, and the cryosphere erosion. Spaceborne platforms generally make use of different technologies, mainly based on the observation and analysis of the signal re-irradiated by the illuminated surface, whose acquisition cannot be considered an instantaneous process. It spans, indeed, over a finite acquisition time window and, therefore, fluctuations of the scattering phenomenon taking place during the radar observation might either be the source of additional information or lead to an increase of noise and uncertainty. Even if this problem is well-known, very few efforts have been devoted to the modeling and understanding of the signal variation at the receiving antenna considering heterogenous soils, especially when observed from space by a receiver spatially separated by the transmitter.
This project proposes an accurate study of the temporal fluctuations of the scattering generated by natural surfaces when observed at microwaves by a moving platform. Both analytical and numerical modeling will be proposed and validated, and an investigation on the spatial decorrelation of the electromagnetic field scattered by different soils, including different configurations and realistic topography, will be conducted.
The proposed research could represent an important step towards the assessment of the capabilities offered by bistatic radar observations, to understand the signal generated by sources of opportunity, and to gather valuable information for the understanding of data produced by current and future spatial missions. This project completes and corroborates the 1-year research assignment of the principal investigator, whose renewal has been approved by the Department Council on June 12th, 2019.