A New Antenna Pattern Deconvolution Method to Enhance the Spatial Resolution of Multi-Channel Microwave Radiometer Measurements

In this study, a new antenna pattern deconvolution method to enhance the spatial resolution of multi-channel microwave radiometer (MWR) measurements is developed. This technique, based on a conventional gradient-like iterative method, utilizes the information contained in a high-frequency channel to enhance the spatial resolution of the lower-frequency channel in a data-fusion fashion. The physical idea consists of initializing the gradient-like inversion scheme using higher frequency details that are filtered out by the system measurement function. Experiments, performed on a dataset that includes both simulated and actual radiometer measurements, show that the proposed technique allows outperforming the conventional gradient method, while being very robust with respect to artifacts that could be induced by the higher frequency channel.