REVISTING THE LIMITS OF AZIMUTH PROCESSING GAIN FOR RADAR SOUNDING

Ice penetrating radar sounders arc the primary geophysical instruments for profiling the subsurface of terrestrial [1] and planetary [2-6] crvospheres. The capability of radar sounders to detect subsurface interfaces beneath thick and/or lossy ice is a function of their link budget [6-7] which must be much greater than surface wimaging or altimetric radars 181 to achieve deep penetration. We propose a coherent along-feature processing approach for radar sounding data that maximizes the achievable azimuth gain for applications, like the exploration of icy moons [6-7] or mapping of deep/warm outlet glacier beds [9]. where detecting very weak reflections from continuous interfaces is critical.