BIBLOS for simulation of the Earth Observation missions

摘要

End-to-End Mission Performance Simulators for Earth Observation missions are one of the prominent tools forsystem design and scientific validation in early mission phases. The European Space Agency has promotedefforts to exploit synergies between activities and reduce engineering costs in mission planning. The maingoal of the BIBLOS project is to provide a library of software units called “Building Blocks”, or simply “Blocks”.These blocks could then be integrated into modules, following the reference architecture developed in the frameof the ARCHEO-E2E project, in order to build an End-to-End Simulator in an efficient manner. The first stageof BIBLOS project, referred to as EOMODEL (or BIBLOS-1) and, focused on Passive Optical instruments, wassuccessfully finished (in April 2016) with the geometry, scene generation and instrument modelling of opticalimagers, which are one of the most frequent types of passive optical instrument on Earth Observation satellites.BIBLOS-2, which is the second stage of the BIBLOS project, is a currently finished activity with the purposeof expanding the BIBLOS library to include Passive Microwaves instruments and Active Microwavesinstruments. Additionally, as part of a continuous improvement process, this second stage of BIBLOS has alsoupdated some of the most computational performance intensive blocks for Passive Optical instruments withparallel implementation for Graphic Processing Units. For BIBLOS-2, the Sentinel-1 and MicroWave Imager(MWI) instruments have been selected to develop the building blocks for Active Microwaves and Passive Microwavesinstruments respectively.During the BIBLOS-2 stage the full simulation chain has been developed for Passive Microwave, startingfrom the Geometry Module, through Scene Generation and Instrument Modules and ending at Level 1 ProcessingModule. For Active Microwave Instruments this stage of the BIBLOS activity is focused on the GeometryModule and the Performance Evaluation Module only. Special efforts are devoted to adapt the Geometry Modulefor monostatic, bistatic and multistatic missions in various configurations and with different a number ofmicrowave instruments. In addition, the Performance Evaluation Module is in charge of evaluating the performancefigures and providing plots, such as diamond diagram, ambiguity area and ratios, Noise EquivalentSigma Zero and antenna radiation patterns.This paper presents the work successfully carried out during the BIBLOS-2 stage, currently performed byGMV under ESA contract.