Quantization and Sampling Effects on Microwave Radiometry RFI Mitigation Algorithms

Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) is an increasing problem in Microwave Radiometry, particularly for Earth Observation. It has been observed at L-band in ESA's SMOS (Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity) Earth Explorer mission, as well as in NASA's SMAP (Soil Moisture Active and Passive) and Aquarius missions, as well as in AMSR-E and WindSat missions at 10.7 GHz and 18.7 GHz [1]. Therefore, dedicated on-board systems are a must to detect and remove contaminated measurements, improve the radiometric accuracy, and guarantee a larger spatial coverage. In this work, the influence of quantization and sampling in the performance of several RFI detection and mitigation techniques is studied for different types of microwave radiometers. It will be shown that coarse quantization schemes strongly impairs RFI mitigation performance, a fundamental aspect to be taken into account when defining the architecture of future instruments.