Snow Pack Structure Characterization using Space Borne SAR Tomography: Concept and Performance Study

This paper studies the potential of X-band space borne SAR tomography for characterizing the structure of snow packs. The proposed solution is based on a constellation of 4 or 5 small satellites operated in a specific MIMO-FDM configuration, whose geometrical and spectral features are optimized so as to reach vertical resolution and ambiguity figures equivalent to 25 monostatic sensors. Estimation performance bounds, computed for specific scenarios, show that this concept is able to accurately capture the internal structure of shallow or deep snow-packs from a single measurement and to unambiguously estimate Snow Water Equivalent using two observations, with a very high accuracy and without assumptions on the structure or thickness of the measured cover.