Multichannel Wideband Synthetic Aperture Radar for Ice Sheet Remote Sensing: Development and the First Deployment in Antarctica

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

We developed a multichannel wideband synthetic aperture radar (SAR) that operates over a frequency range of 190-450 MHz for measurements over the ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland. The antenna-array, which consists of eight elements housed in a certified external structure for a BASLER aircraft, was used for measurements during the 2013-2014 Antarctic field season. We performed measurements with this system in conjunction with two ultra-wideband radars operating over a frequency range of 2-8 GHz and 12-18 GHz on Siple Coast ice streams in West Antarctica during December 2013 and January 2014. We sounded ice thicker than 2 km with a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of more than 20 dB in an area with two-way ice loss of about 27 dB/km. The same system also simultaneously mapped near-surface internal layers with submeter resolution from the ice-surface to a depth of about 1100 for 1200 m thick ice. In this paper, we provide a detailed overview of the radar instrumentation and signal processing algorithms and present a few sample results. The radar will be operated over a frequency range of 150-550 MHz with a 24-element antenna-array for wide-ranging measurements over the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, starting around August 2015.