Sea ice concentration and sea ice extent mapping with L-Band microwave radiometry and GNSS-R data from the FFSCat mission using neural networks

• Published in: Remote Sensing
• Main Authors: Llaveria Godoy, David, Muñoz Martin, Joan Francesc, Herbert, Christoph Josef, Pablos Hernández, Miriam, Hyuk, Park, Camps Carmona, Adriano José
• Other Authors: Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. Doctorat en Teoria del Senyal i Comunicacions, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. Departament de Física, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. Departament de Teoria del Senyal i Comunicacions, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. RSLAB - Grup de Recerca en Teledetecció
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI) 2021
• Subjects: Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Enginyeria de la telecomunicació; Global Navigation Satellite System; Global system for mobile communications; Sea ice; Microwave radiometry; GNSS-R; Nanosatellite; Earth observation; Neural networks; Sistema global per a comunicacions mòbils; Antarc*; Antarctic
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2117/357929; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13061139

CubeSat-based Earth Observation missions have emerged in recent times, achieving scientifically valuable data at a moderate cost. FSSCat is a two 6U CubeSats mission, winner of the ESA S3 challenge and overall winner of the 2017 Copernicus Masters Competition, that was launched in September 2020. The first satellite, 3Cat-5/A, carries the FMPL-2 instrument, an L-band microwave radiometer and a GNSS-Reflectometer. This work presents a neural network approach for retrieving sea ice concentration and sea ice extent maps on the Arctic and the Antarctic oceans using FMPL-2 data. The results from the first months of operations are presented and analyzed, and the quality of the retrieved maps is assessed by comparing them with other existing sea ice concentration maps. As compared to OSI SAF products, the overall accuracy for the sea ice extent maps is greater than 97% using MWR data, and up to 99% when using combined GNSS-R and MWR data. In the case of Sea ice concentration, the absolute errors are lower than 5%, with MWR and lower than 3% combining it with the GNSS-R. The total extent area computed using this methodology is close, with 2.5% difference, to those computed by other well consolidated algorithms, such as OSI SAF or NSIDC. The approach presented for estimating sea ice extent and concentration maps is a cost-effective alternative, and using a constellation of CubeSats, it can be further improved. This work was supported by 2017 ESA S3 challenge and Copernicus Masters overall winner award (“FSSCat” project). this work has been (partially) sponsored by project SPOT: Sensing with Pioneering Opportunistic Techniques grant RTI2018-099008-B-C21/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, and by the Unidad de Excelencia Maria de Maeztu MDM-2016-0600. This work has also been (partially) sponsored by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through the project ESP2017-89463-C3, and by the Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa (CEX2019-000928-S), and by the CSIC Plataforma Temática Interdisciplinar de Teledetección ...