UNIVERSITÀ
DEGLI
STUDI
DEL SANNIO
DEL SANNIO
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RESEARCH FIELD
My research field is Global Navigation Satellite Systems - Reflectometry (GNSS-R), which is a novel remote sensing technique exploiting GNSS signals for ice, land and ocean monitoring. An airborne or spaceborne (or even fixed) receiver is equipped with a nadir-pointing GNSS antenna, which collects data transmitted by GNSS satellites and scattered off a physical surface.
The signal processing allows to retrieve some interesting parameters related to the specific surface: soil moisture, sea ice extent, sea surface roughness and salinity, wind speed and so on. Furthermore, some new studies show that this technique could be used for target detection in forward and backscattering configurations. The spatial and temporale coverage granted by GNSS constellations (GPS, Galileo etc.) is what makes GNSS Reflectometry very attractive. Moreover, the L-band GNSS signal is slightly influenced by rain and clouds, which is of great importance for remote sensing applications. These reasons led to the planning of various satellite missions with GNSS-R payload, such as
- TechDemoSat-1, one of the first missions to show the capability of GNSS remote sensing;
- CYGNSS, launched in 2016, constists of a constellation of 8 micro-satellites with the aim of measuring wind speed in tropical cyclones. The extremely low revisit time obtained with this technique are unique.
- GEROS-ISS, programmed for 2019, consists of the implementation of GNSS-R payload onboard the International Space Station (ISS).
My PhD work is particularly focused on the following topics:
- Development and validation of a new time-varying stochastic model for the description of the GNSS signal scattered off the sea surface.
- Super-resolution algorithms for forward target detection with GNSS-R signals.
- Simulation of the received signal and comparisons with existing simulators.
- Wind speed estimation over ocean surface, in case of spatially non-homogeneous fields.
- Use of spaceborne (TechDemoSat-1 and CYGNSS missions) and airborne (GOLD-RTR) data.