Inverse Brightness Temperature Estimation for Microwave Scanning Radiometer

The passive microwave remote sensing has progressed considerably in recent years. Important earth surface parameters are detected and monitored by airborne and space born radiometers. However the spatial resolution of real aperture measurements is constrained by the antenna aperture size available on orbiting platforms and on the ground. The inverse problem technique is researched in order to improve the spatial resolution of microwave scanning radiometer. We solve a two-dimensional (surface) temperature-imaging problem with a major intention to develop high-resolution methods. In this paper, the scenario for estimation of both radiometer point spread function (PSF) and target configuration is explained. The PSF of the radiometer is assumed to be unknown and estimated from the observations. The configuration and brightness temperature of targets are also estimated. To do this, we deal with the parametric modeling of observation scenario. The performance of developed algorithms is illustrated on two-dimensional experimental data obtained by the water vapor radiometer.