Cross-correlation waveform mode: A critical review

Earth-reflected Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signals have become an attractive tool for remote sensing. Recently it has been proposed as an alternative to the conventional altimetry to estimate the surface height However GNSS-R altimetry offers lower bandwidths and signals power compared to radar altimeters. This implies a poorer altimetry precision, accuracy and resolution per pulse.Also the altimetry precision will be impacted by the impact of the thermal, and speckle noise mainly. This paper gives a critical review of the cross-correlation waveform model.