ON-BOARD RADIO FREQUENCY INTERFERENCE PROCESSOR FOR THE COPERNICUS IMAGING MICROWAVE RADIOMETER

Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) has been an increasing problem for Earth observing radiometers - especially spaceborne - for many years as RFI adds to the power level measured by these radiometers and thereby affects the results derived from the measurements. Methods for removing RFI have been either ground processing (the only available option for older satellites like SMOS) or producing more output to improve ground processing capabilities for removing RFI as in SMAP. With the increasing demands for improved spatial and radiometric resolution the first method is insufficient and the second requires downloading too much data. During the design of the MetOp-Second Generation (MetOp-SG) satellite it has been demonstrated that on-board RFI detection is possible and for future radiometers on-board processing is the way forward. This paper introduces the RFI processor for the High Priority Copernicus Mission satellite CIMR (Copernicus Imaging Microwave Radiometer) which comprises 25 radiometer channels at five different radiometer bands.