Tenders Are Invited For Waveform Simulator

Tenders are invited for Waveform Simulator for Polarimetric Radar Altimeters Expro+ Data of the ground-based dual-frequency fully polarized Ku- and Ka-band radar "KuKa" from the MOSAiC Arctic expedition and Antarctic sea ice measurements in the Weddell Sea suggest a clear relationship between cross-polarized radar echo waveforms and snow depth. However, cross-polarized radar altimetry echo waveforms models and simulators that describe this effect are not available. Furthermore, a mature analytical framework to describe these observations with a physical model is not available. Such a tool is required to explore how sensitive cross-polarized echo waveforms are to different snow properties and instrument and geometry parameters.For the simulation of the cross-polarized echo waveforms, the Snow Microwave Radiative Transfer model (SMRT) offers a promising candidate. The SMRT is a framework in active community development and includes different electromagnetic theories, representations of snow microstructure, and other modules at various calculations steps that can be combined. In recent years, also the "nadir_altimetry" solver was added to the SMRT framework to allow for co-polarized radar altimeter waveform generation.The objective of this activity is to develop, implement and validate a cross-polarized radar altimeter waveform model inside the framework of the SMRT and to analyse the polarisation sensitivity in dependence of different instrument, geometry and scene parameters.To achieve this, the Contractor shall implement multi-scattering functionalities into the altimeter solver of SMRT. Further, the Contractor shall implement waveform simulations of ground- and airborne-based radar altimeters. After implementation and validation with real data, the Contractor shall use SMRT to perform simulations of representative scenarios of ground-based, airborne-based and satellite-based instruments in dependence of different snowpack parameters Tender Link : https://esastar-publication-ext.sso.esa.int/ESATenderActions/filter/open