The Track Processing for Radar Altimeter Based on the Maximum Likelihood Estimate
基于最大似然估计的雷达高度计跟踪处理

Radar altimeter(RA) is a kind of active microwave remote sensor,which can measure the distance between the platform and the sea surface,the ocean wave height and the back scattering coefficient.The control system performs an important action in RA,which tracks the return wave and gives the measurement results in real time.In this paper,the characteristic of ocean echo is analyzed according to the ocean echo Model of Brown.Either the ocean returen wave noise with an exponential distribution,or the thermal noise with a uniform distribtuion are simulated to discover the statistics characteristic of the return wave form.A new space borne radar altimeter tracker based on maximum likelihood estimate (MLE) is completed,which includes height loop,SWH loop and AGC loop.The perfect haleness and accuracy of the tracker is shown in the flight experiment.The principle,the hardware design and the work specifications of the tracker are present together with some flight experiment data.