Sea Wind Measurement by Doppler Navigation System with X-Configured Beams in Rectilinear Flight

Abstract

We suggest a conceptual approach to the measurement of the near-surface wind vector over water using a Doppler navigation system, in addition to its standard navigation capabilities. We consider a Doppler navigation system with a track-stabilized antenna and x-configuration of its beams. For the measurement of the sea-surface wind, the system operates in the multi-beam scatterometer mode in rectilinear flight. The proposed conceptual design has been validated, and its accuracy for the wind vector measurement has been estimated using Monte Carlo computational simulations.

Keywords

• Doppler navigation system
• scatterometer
• normalized radar cross section
• sea wind retrieval
• algorithm