Model of Sea Ice Signals for Synthetic-aperture Radar System

The article is devoted to mathematical modeling of signals scattered over the surface of the sea ice. The model is designed to generate and process reflected signals for various airborne radar systems and even synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) systems. Such modern systems typically produce radar images. But here we concentrate on solving the problem of measuring the thickness of ice along with the calculation of images of the ice surface. Thus, to solve this problem, it is necessary to preserve several ideas (such as decimeter and decameter waves, vertical looking, wideband, coherent processing, and resolution of multiple reflections). The model is suitable for identifying features of SAR implementation in such a remote sensing application. During the first study, to simplify the model, only basic parameters of the ice surface were realized: the ice is homogenous and both of its surfaces consist of many bright points. The model can simulate reflected signals and radar images with additional information about an ice layer structure. So, a precision wideband radar system can measure the ice thickness, evaluate its dirtiness, uniformity, other object presence, etc.