PAU one-receiver ground-based and airbone instruments

The development of new concepts in remote sensing may improve the retrieval of geophysical parameters, an particularly the sea surface salinity. PAU (Passive Advanced Unit for ocean monitoring), a new hybrid, L-band radiometer, GNSSreflectometer and IR radiometer. This instrument will include a receiving antenna array of 4×4 elements, each one with its corresponding dual-polarization receiver. Since the calibration procedure for the whole ensemble needs to be thoroughly verified, the implementation of single-receiver PAU sensors has been undertaken to obtaining the first experimental data and to allow to compare them with simulation results. Since both ground-based and airborne measurements will be obtained with the full version of PAU, ground-based and airborne one-receiver demonstrators have being implemented. These sensors do not incorporate the IR radiometer included in the full PAU instrument, but are representative of the hybrid radiometerreflectometer concept. This paper describes both instruments and its future applications.