Irregular Layout for a Satellite’s Interferometric Array

We address the optimization problem of antenna placement on satellite-mounted interferometric synthetic-aperture instruments. In classic designs, the antennas on satellites are aligned regularly on the satellite’s frame. Inspired by methods proposed for the placement of antennas in astronomical interferometers, such as ALMA or SKA, we explore irregular layouts and show that they are a valid alternative in terms of spatial resolution and reconstruction error. We formalize mathematically the optimization problem of irregularly placed antennas and we show that this kind of arrays can still be calibrated with the same methods used for regular arrays. Finally, this strategy is evaluated in the context of soil moisture and ocean salinity (SMOS) follow-up concepts, such as SMOS-HR (high resolution), for which the new optimized irregular configurations are compared to the regular ones.