IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN APPLIED EARTH OBSERVATIONS AND REMOTE SENSING, VOL. 11, NO.
6, JUNE 2018 1913
Radio Frequency Environment for Earth-Observing
Passive Microwave Imagers
David W. Draper
Abstract—This paper examines the radio frequency interference
(RFI) environment within microwave imager bands for sensors
that have observed the earth over the last two decades. Since the
microwave imagers have used various bands both within and out-
side of International Telecommunications Union (ITU) allocated
frequencies for passive satellite earth exploration, this survey pro-
vides valuable insight into band selection and mitigation strategies
for future missions. Several conclusions are drawn from this pa-
per. First, significant land-based RFI exists at the C-Band. The
two-band mitigation solution for the C-Band utilized by Advanced
Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 provides some RFI reduction
of high-level RFI (>10 K), and therefore, may have merit for future
missions in cases where only two subbands can be feasibly imple-
mented. At the X-band, ocean reflections from direct broadcast
and communication satellites (especially around Europe) provide
considerable interference above the ITU-allocated 10.6–10.7 GHz
band, whereas very little reflected interference is observed within
the allocated band. Good out-of-band rejection is required to avoid
the reflected RFI above 10.7 GHz. Both inside and outside of the X-
band allocation, significant terrestrial RFI exists. For the K-band,
the 19.35-GHz band utilized by Special Sensor Microwave Imager
Sounder and Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission Microwave Im-
ager avoids reflected RFI from satellites that is present around the
continental United States for satellites observing within the 18.6 to
18.8 GHz allocated band. The analysis suggests that the 19.35-GHz
band may be preferable to the 18.7 GHz allocated band for ocean
applications if avoiding RFI is desired.
Index Terms—Algorithms, electromagnetic interference, mi-
crowave radiometry, radio frequency interference (RFI).
I. INTRODUCTION
N EVER-INCREASING demand for the radio frequency
A spectrum makes preserving pristine bands for earth re-
mote sensing a nearly insurmountable uphill climb. With the C-,
X-, and K-band having wide-spread commercial use and higher
band RF components becoming more viable, space-based mi-
crowave imagers have seen evolving radio frequency interfer-
ence (RFI) within their operating bands over the last several
decades [1]–[7]. Although most microwave imager channels
operate within ranges allocated by the International Telecom-
munications Union (ITU) for passive earth exploration satel-
lite service (EESS), active ground and space-based applications
Manuscript received September 15, 2017; revised December 6, 2017; ac-
cepted January 16, 2018. Date of publication March 12, 2018; date of current
version June 29, 2018. This work was supported in part by the Goddard Space
Flight Center and in part by Precipitation Processing System.
The author is with the Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp, Boulder, CO
80301 USA (e-mail: ddraper@ball.com).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JSTARS.2018.2801019
1939-1404 © 2018 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
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, Member, IEEE
also share most allocated bands, causing abundant interference
within the bands. Interestingly, certain types of RFI occur within
the ITU allocated bands rather than at other nearby frequencies
outside allocated frequency bands (see Section V).
For the moment, RFI is concentrated at the lower frequencies
utilized by remote sensing applications for surface applications.
Instruments have observed RFI at the L-band (where passive
remote sensing and radio astronomy are given exclusive claim
to the spectrum from 1400 to 1427 MHz) [8]–[10], at the C-Band
(where there is no ITU allocation) [1]–[4], the X-band (where
there is a shared allocation from 10.6 to 10.7 GHz) [1]–[2], [11],
and the K-band (where there is a shared allocation from 18.6 to
18.8 GHz and from 21.2 to 21.4) [3], [11]–[12]. Thus far, no
contamination has been noted for bands given exclusive passive
remote sensing/radio astronomy access at 23.6 to 24.0 GHz
and 31.3 to 31.8 GHz. The shared allocated bands at higher
frequencies such as the Ka-band (36.0 to 37.0) and the V-band
(52.6 to 59.3 and 65 to 66 GHz) have also not yet observed any
significant RFI.
For frequency bands that are dedicated only to science ap-
plications, such as the L-band, the radiometer community has
some recourse to have illegal transmitters turned OFF [13]; how-
ever, for microwave imagers, which operate at higher frequen-
cies with mostly shared allocations, taking such legal action
is much more difficult if not impossible. As such, developing
RFI-mitigating radiometers has been a topic of recent research
[14]–[19]. Most past radiometer systems had no on-board RFI
detection and mitigation capability. At the time of conception
of these radiometers, the frequencies of operation were not used
much by other services, the RFI environment was not as well
understood or the technology did not readily exist to mitigate the
interference as it does now. A combination of high-speed digital
technology advances along with continued RFI mitigation re-
search have provided multiple new options for mitigating (rather
than just detecting) RFI [20]–[24]. To date, only the most recent
the C-band and L-band missions incorporate RFI mitigation into
their design. The Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2
(AMSR2) achieves moderate RFI mitigation with two separate
analog channels in the C-Band [25]. The L-band Soil Moisture
Active Passive (SMAP) radiometer, launched in 2015, is the first
of its kind to incorporate on-board digital subbanding, subsam-
pling, polarimetry, and kurtosis processing [26] that are used in
ground processing to detect and mitigate RFI.
As the remote sensing community moves forward to fu-
ture missions, it is learning how to reduce the impact of RFI
on science measurements. The purpose of this paper is to
 1914 IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN APPLIED EARTH OBSERVATIONS AND REMOTE SENSING, VOL. 11, NO. 6, JUNE 2018

TABLE I
CENTER FREQUENCIES (GHZ) OF RECENT MICROWAVE IMAGERS ADDRESSED
IN THIS PAPER

Instrument C-band X-band K-band K-band∗ Ka-band V, W mm-wave

TMI 10.65 19.35 21.3 37.0 85.5

GMI 10.65 18.7 23.8 36.64 89 166
183.31 ± 3
183.31 ± 7
WindSat 6.8 10.7 18.7 23.8 37.0
AMSR-E 6.925 10.65 18.7 23.8 36.5 89
AMSR2 6.925, 7.3 10.65 18.7 23.8 36.5 89
SSMI 19.35 22.235 37.0 85.5
SSMIS 19.35 22.235 37.0 50.3– 150
63.28, 183.31 ± 1
91.65 183.31±3
183.31±7

Fig. 1. Frequency bands utilized by microwave imagers. The pink bands
identify ITU-allocated dedicated (d) passive bands for remote sensing, radio
astronomy, and space research. The gray bands are ITU-allocated bands that are
shared with active ground or space-borne transmitters.
provide guidance for future missions by offering context into
the current and past RFI environment that has been measured
by recent microwave imagers from the C-band to K-band. The
measurement passbands for current and past sensors in the C-
to K-band range are given in Fig. 1. The instruments of inter-
est include the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) and
its successor Special Sensor Microwave Imager Sounder (SS-
MIS), which have flown on multiple Defense Meteorological
Satellite Program (DMSP) satellites, the Advanced Microwave
Scanning Radiometer – Earth Observing System (AMSR-E)
aboard the Aqua satellite and is successor AMSR2 on the Global
Change Observation Mission-Water developed by the Japanese
Aerospace Exploration Agency, the Tropical Rainfall Measur-
ing Mission Microwave Imager (TMI) and the follow-on Global
Precipitation Measurement Microwave Imager (GMI) flown by
the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and Wind-
Sat instrument flown on the Coriolis spacecraft by the Naval
Research Laboratory.
We detect RFI using a relatively simple generalized spectral
index method, where each channel of interest is compared to a
linear combination of other channels and their squares, which
represent a best fit to the channel of interest depending upon
surface type [27]. This type of detection scheme is advantageous
because it operates on the measured data itself, without needing
external information. It is limited by a lower sensitivity in cases
of atypical surface conditions or natural phenomenon such as
convective storms, melting snow, or salt flats. It also has lower
sensitivity along coast lines or inland waterways where both
land and water fall within the same measurement.
Center frequencies for channels of each of the imagers are
provided in Table I. We examine the past RFI environment over
various areas of the world and how the environment has changed
over time. We look at the spectral variation of the RFI insofar as
it can be measured with the current and recent past radiometers
in operation. We find that in various developed countries, the RFI
has slowly decreased over the last 1.5 decades, but is increasing
in developing areas.
∗
Water vapor channels.
See Fig. 1 for Bandwidths of 6 to 24 GHz Imaging Channels.
The map of the RFI environment for the C-band through
the Ku-band is shown in Fig. 2. It shows the maximum RFI
index in Kelvins over a 1 month period. Much of the land-
based RFI segments nicely by geopolitical boundary. For the
C-Band, the two AMSR2 channels exhibit sufficiently different
RFI corrupted regions that significant RFI mitigation is possible.
The RFI observed around the United States (18.7 GHz)
and Europe (10.7 GHz) originates from geosynchronous di-
rect broadcast satellite transmission reflecting off the ocean sur-
face. In the current RFI environment, the ocean-reflected RFI
is avoided by remaining within the ITU-allocated the X-band
shared allocation at 10.65 GHz as GMI does, and using a higher
band (19.35 GHz) outside of the ITU allocation with less inter-
ference as TMI does.
Section II presents the method for RFI detection and mag-
nitude estimation. Using the method, Section III provides a
multiyear trend analysis. Section IV analyzes the dual-band
mitigation approach from AMSR2. Section V compares RFI re-
flected from the ocean within various instruments with different
bands. Section VI provides conclusions.
II. METHOD
Where on-board mitigation techniques are not available, var-
ious methods have been utilized over the last two decades to
characterize and flag RFI in ground algorithms. Fundamentally,
the methods identify unnatural variation of the data that is not
explained by common geophysical phenomena. The various RFI
detection methods used in postprocessing are given in Table II.
A. Past RFI Detection Methods
The simplest methods are the brightness temperature (Tb)
threshold and spectral difference methods. The Tb threshold
detects RFI when its effect increases the Tb some observed
natural limit such as 320 K [28]. It is the simplest method
of detection, and therefore, has the lowest sensitivity, and only
works well over land where the natural Tb is high, and therefore,
not far from the Tb threshold.

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 DRAPER: RADIO FREQUENCY ENVIRONMENT FOR EARTH-OBSERVING PASSIVE MICROWAVE IMAGERS 1915

Fig. 2. RFI observed by microwave imagers from the C-band to K-band. Each color represents the maximum RFI index over a month period at a several bands
observed by the radiometers (See Fig. 1 for a description of bands used by each sensor). RFI at 6.9 GHz (green) is most notable in the continental United States,
Brazil, India, Middle East, and Japan. 7.3 GHz RFI (yellow) is pronounced in Eastern Europe, Russia, Turkey, Africa, Indonesia, and South-East Asia, 10.65 GHz
RFI (within ITU shared band, red) is observed at high levels in Great Britain, Italy, Turkey, the Nile Delta, Japan, and Mexico (although somewhat obscured by
other frequencies in Mexico). The wider WindSat 10.7 GHz is also seen in the same locations as well as around the continent of Europe as direct broadcast satellites
reflect off the ocean. The RFI at 18.7 GHz (also within ITU shared band, navy) appears most dramatically around the continental United States and Hawaii from
direct broadcast satellites. The 19.35 GHz Band (light blue) shows up in Mexico and Johannesburg South Africa. Depending upon availability of data, the data
may have been acquired anywhere between late 2014 and 2017.

TABLE II can be approximated by comparing a channel of interest to a

VARIOUS RFI CHARACTERIZATION METHODS
linear combination of other channels and their squares. The
model difference algorithm is similar to the method used in the
Method Surface Type Sensitivity∗ Reference paper, presented in the next section.
Tb Threshold Land Low e.g., [28] The principal component analysis decomposes the multispec-
Spectral difference Land Low to Moderate [1]–[3] tral Tb data or RFI indices into a set of vectors that form a
Model difference Ocean Moderate to High [2]
Principal component Land, Ocean Moderate to High [2], [29],
new orthonormal data space. The decomposition forms a natu-
Polarization index Land (second, Low to High [30], [31] ral basis set for the data, where the first basis vectors span the
third, fourth) space of highest variance. Unnatural emissions express them-
Ocean (third,
fourth)
selves as large magnitudes in the lowest ranked components. [2],
Chi-squared probability Ocean Land, Moderate to High [32] [29] [29], [30].
Probability Distribution Ocean Moderate to High Other methods include polarization index method and chi-
Generalized RFI Index Land, Ocean Moderate to High This work
squared probability method. The polarization index involves
∗
Low Sensitivity = 20 K+. examining the polarization characteristics in either second, third,
Moderate Sensitivity = 10 to 20 K. or fourth Stokes for anthropomorphic signatures. The second
High Sensitivity < 10 K. Stokes can be relatively good for identifying linearly polarized
RFI over dry land as the RFI has a clear v-to-h signature. For
The spectral difference method compares the channel of in- fully polarimetric instruments such as WindSat, the third and
terest to the next highest frequency of the same polarization, and fourth Stokes channels are very useful in detecting RFI, since
flags RFI when the two channels differ by more than a threshold the polarimetric signature of the earth for these channels is
[1]–[3]. The Tb threshold and spectral difference methods are typically less than 5 K [31].
useful over land, but do not work as well over ocean where the The chi-squared probability method examines the residual
Tb is lower and spectral difference variability is much greater. chi-squared function in the retrieval algorithm and flags areas as
More sophisticated methods such as the model difference RFI where the “goodness of fit” reflected by high chi-squared
and principal component analysis methods are most useful over values suggest RFI [32]. Furthermore, research continues into
ocean [2]. The model difference method compares a channel of even more sophisticated methods, but this listing suffices for the
interest to the result of a radiative transfer model. This method purposes of this paper.

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 1916 IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN APPLIED EARTH OBSERVATIONS AND REMOTE SENSING, VOL. 11, NO. 6, JUNE 2018

TABLE III
GMI GENERALIZED RFI INDEX COEFFICIENTS USED IN (2)

LAND OCEAN SEAICE

coefficient 10.65 V 10.65 H 18.7 V 18.7 H 10.65 V 10.65 H 18.7 V 18.7 H 10.65 V 10.65 H 18.7 V 18.7 H

a 10 V 1 0 0.2678 0.8294 1 0 1.0743 0.2818 1 0 0.2562 0.1469

a 10 H 0 1 −0.3393 −0.9613 0 1 −0.1198 0.1751 0 1 0.0387 −0.2926
a 18 V −5.1728 −5.1287 1 0 −4.3637 −1.2731 1 0 −4.5888 3.7739 1 0
a 18 H −0.1691 −0.6539 0 1 1.0042 –0.2804 0 1 −2.3296 −2.5049 0 1
a 23 V 7.2909 7.2682 −1.9501 −1.5338 0.1149 −0.2418 0.1759 0.2402 10.5330 0.1952 −2.4211 −1.2576
a 36 V −3.4811 −4.1260 1.5762 2.4969 1.8648 −0.7479 −0.7066 1.5860 −5.2574 −0.9190 1.1131 1.1546
a 36 H 0.8877 1.7169 −0.0866 −1.3592 −0.5954 −0.0604 0.0204 −0.7539 3.9066 1.8001 −0.5157 −1.3764
a 89 V 1.5663 2.5001 −0.7921 −1.2043 −0.4187 0.0790 1.2913 1.5226 2.1925 0.9800 −1.0718 −1.0059
a 89 H −1.3052 −2.1763 0.4082 0.9501 0.0666 0.1374 −0.3753 −0.5219 −3.6059 −1.5765 1.2233 0.9447
b10 V 0 0 −0.001049 −0.001245 0 0 −0.004329 −0.000281 0 0 −0.001286 0.000094
b10 H 0 0 0.000688 0.001164 0 0 0.000415 −0.003704 0 0 0.000080 −0.000284
b18 V 0.005787 0.008734 0 0 0.004994 −0.000287 0 0 0.006185 –0.011295 0 0
b18 H 0.000569 −0.001983 0 0 −0.001200 −0.000084 0 0 0.005120 0.002463 0 0
b23 V −0.012336 −0.012041 0.002321 0.001326 0.000691 0.002084 −0.001268 −0.002088 −0.020891 0.003943 0.003344 0.000754
b36 V 0.007578 0.007470 −0.003043 −0.003140 −0.001569 0.003922 0.001136 −0.002348 0.011734 0.000860 −0.001932 −0.000332
b36 H −0.002089 −0.002182 0.000058 0.000911 0.000352 −0.000752 −0.000329 0.000339 −0.008653 −0.002662 0.000775 0.001033
b89 V −0.003400 −0.005376 0.001572 0.001926 0.000648 −0.000189 −0.002658 −0.003353 −0.004599 −0.001890 0.002052 0.001585
b89 H 0.002800 0.004666 −0.000685 −0.001325 −0.000123 −0.000368 0.001054 0.001605 0.007966 0.003407 −0.002396 −0.001494
a o −85.56 −53.96 −12.32 −30.56 130.31 138.29 –240.74 −358.70 −263.26 −356.19 54.78 85.61

B. Generalized RFI Index Method
Most of the methods discussed in the previous section rely
on the correlation between channels to estimate significant de-
viations from typical conditions. This correlation is used to
derive a generalized RFI detection method for both land and
ocean. The generalized method expands the idea of the model
difference method to land scenes. A set of coefficients is de-
termined such that the magnitude of RFI is estimated as the
difference between the channel of interest and a best fit repre-
sentation of that channel using channels of different center fre-
quencies and their squares. The generalized RFI index ΔTb[i] is
expressed as
ΔTb[i] = Tb[i]
⎧ ⎫
⎨  ⎬ of the channels of interest, ao [i] = −ao [i], and aj [i] = −aj [i]
 
− a0 [i] + aj [i]Tb[j] + bj [i]Tb2 [j]
⎩ ⎭
j ∈{f c(j )= f c(i)}
(1)
where i represents the channel index to the channel of interest
and j is the channel index to all other channels with different
center frequency (f c). The ao [i] are constant terms, the aj [i]
are linear coefficients and bj [i] are quadratic coefficients.
We do not use the opposite polarization of the channel of
interest in the fit, but use all other channels of both polarizations
up to 89 GHz. The exception is the C-Band channels of AMSR2,
where the C-band channels are not used in the best-fit represen-
tation, i.e., bracketed portion of (1), due to the high RFI. With
this exception, other channels with different center frequencies
that are contaminated by RFI at the X-band and K-band are still
included in the best-fit representation to keep the algorithm sim-
ple. The other channels that contain RFI corrupt the RFI index
of the channel of interest, typically creating negative RFI in-
dices. In such cases, RFI in the channel of interest is less likely
to be flagged and missed detections may occur more frequently.
Given the spatial distribution of the X- and K-band RFI, there are
few actual earth locations where RFI occurs simultaneously in
both bands (Mexico and Japan being notable exceptions). More
sophisticated methods may be developed in the future to ignore
other channels in the bracketed portion of (1) where known RFI
exists and use a different fit in those cases.
The generalized RFI index of (1) may be written in an even
simpler form, as a linear combination of all channels,
 
ΔTb[i] = ao [i] + a j [i]Tb[j] + b j [i]Tb2 [j] (2)
j
where j is summed over all channels, aj [i] = 1 for the channel of
interest, aj [i] = 0 for channels with the same center frequency
for all channels (j) with a different center frequency than the
channel of interest. Likewise, bj [i] = 0 for the channel of in-
terest and all channels with the same center frequency, and
bj [i] = −bj [i] for all other channels.
A separate set of coefficients is determined for land, ocean,
and sea ice. The generalized RFI index coefficients derived for
GMI are shown in Table III. The generalized RFI index method
has moderate sensitivity for native data and high sensitivity
for temporally averaged data, for most earth conditions. It can,
however, produce false alarms along coast lines, near lakes and
islands, over certain odd terrains, mis-flagged sea ice, or melt-
ing snow. It can also be highly dependent upon geometry, and
may produce anomalous results if the attitude or altitude of the
spacecraft changes. For this analysis, stormy seas, sea-to-ice
interfaces, and certain other geographical features have been
masked to avoid known sources of false alarms [27].
The generalized RFI index method was initially introduced
for operational flagging of GMI data. The distribution of RFI
index values for RFI-free data from the GMI instrument’s 10.65

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 DRAPER: RADIO FREQUENCY ENVIRONMENT FOR EARTH-OBSERVING PASSIVE MICROWAVE IMAGERS
Fig. 3. Distribution of generalized RFI indices over land and ocean for RFI-
free data from GMI. For GMI, RFI thresholds were selected to be 6 sigma or
more to reduce the probability of false alarm in operational data.
and 18.7 GHz channels are given in Fig. 3. The distributions pro-
vide insight into the sensitivity of the method. A set of thresholds
are applied to the data on the native grid to flag each measure-
ment cell as containing RFI. A cell is flagged as suspect if the
generalized RFI index exceeds the threshold
ΔTb[i, type] > Tbthreshold [i, type] (3)
where i is the channel index and type is the surface type (ocean,
land, seaice).
To avoid false alarms on GMI, the thresholds used in na-
tive gridded data for processing by the Precipitation Processing
System at Goddard Space Flight Center have been set relatively
high, at 6-sigma or more relative to the RFI-free areas (see
Fig. 3 for distribution of the RFI over RFI-free areas). For GMI
10.65 GHz channels, the thresholds are set to 15 K for ocean and
20 K for land in the operational algorithm because of the desire
to reduce false alarms. For 18.7 GHz channels, the thresholds
are set to 10 K for both ocean and land. Given the distributions
in Fig. 3, it is evident that thresholds could be tightened if the
application required it, and higher level of false alarms were
tolerable. For example, the 10 GHz threshold could be reduced
to 10 K over ocean and 18 GHz thresholds could be reduced to
5 K over the ocean and still be greater than 6-sigma of RFI-free
areas.
The land and ocean thresholds apply to 80% of the earth.
Thresholds are set higher for coastlines, sea ice, and high-
latitude regions where significant snow persists. In these re-
gions, which are about 15% of the earth, the method has lower
sensitivity, and only high RFI can be differentiated using the
generalized RFI index. Stormy areas over the ocean (less than
5% of the data, identified by high 36 GHz horizontal polar-
ization) are ignored by the flagging due to the highly variable
nature of the spectrum. For each sensor, the thresholds have
been customized to meet the sensitivity of that sensor.
The generalized RFI index method has very good sensitivity
when used on temporally averaged data. Thresholds for RFI
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1917
Fig. 4. RFI measured for the 6.9 GHz V-pol channels of AMSR-E and
AMSR2. Top: Maximum measured RFI Index over 1 month period (October
2017). Middle: Percentage of various regions with RFI detected with a magni-
tude over 10 K persistently detected more than 10% of the time, as a function of
time. Bottom: Average RFI index for all measurement points within the region
that have been detected with a magnitude over 10 K more than 10% of the time.
index based on a monthly average Tb may be set much lower
(2 K for 18 GHz and 5 K for 10 GHz over land). Temporally
averaged data with lower RFI thresholds have been used for
identifying a database of regions where GMI is persistently
corrupted by RFI [27].
III. MULTIYEAR RFI TREND
Over the last several decades, the radiometer missions have
provided a rich database of Tbs from which we evaluate the
changing RFI environment. Four sets of imagers carry a nearly
continuous Tb record over the last 15 to 30 years:
1) The SSM/I sensors, followed by the SSMIS sensors on the
DMSP satellites have operated nearly continuously from
1987 through the present.
2) The AMSR-E and AMSR2 sensors provide a nearly con-
tinuous dataset from 2002 through the present.
3) The WindSat instrument flown on the Coriolis spacecraft
by NRL has operated from 2003 through the present.
4) The TMI has operated from 1997 through 2015, followed
by the GMI from 2014 through the present.
For multiyear trending, we concentrate on the AMSR-E and
AMSR2 satellites since these contain most of the bands of inter-
est and provide full global coverage. SSM/I and SSMIS have a
much longer data record, but do not have the C-Band or X-Band
 1918 IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN APPLIED EARTH OBSERVATIONS AND REMOTE SENSING, VOL. 11, NO. 6, JUNE 2018
Fig. 5. RFI measured for the 10.65 GHz V-pol channels of AMSR-E and
AMSR2. Top: Maximum measured RFI Index over 1 month period (October
2017). Middle: Percentage of various regions with RFI detected with a magni-
tude over 15 K persistently detected more than 10% of the time, as a function of
time. Bottom: Average RFI index for all measurement points within the region
that have been detected with a magnitude over 15 K more than 10% of the time.
channels. The TMI and GMI also have a longer data record, but
do not have the C-band channels and only cover to +/−38◦
latitude during the TMI era, which limits the extent over which
the RFI can be analyzed. Temporal trending of GMI-era data is
also presented in [33].
Figs. 4–6 show the RFI trended from 2002 through 2017
based on the AMSR-E and AMSR2 instruments for three bands:
6.9 GHz, 10.65 GHz, and 18.7 GHz. We examine the vertical
polarization channels because they are less sensitive to atmo-
spheric effects and varying surface types that cause a larger
natural variation in the RFI index.
In each block of Figs. 4–6, the top figure shows the maximum
RFI index detected over the last month of data collection. For
regions of the world with significant RFI, we show in the middle
plot a time series containing the extent of RFI that exceeds
the algorithm thresholds (applied to Tb measurements on the
native grid) more than 10% of the time. Such criteria map out
a smaller area than regions that exhibit any RFI whatsoever,
but provides the extent of larger-magnitude persistent RFI in
the region. The bottom plot evaluates the average RFI index
over the persistently detected region (exceeding thresholds more
than 10% of the time) within each country of interest. Other
criteria of extent and magnitude could have been selected, but
these provide sufficient fidelity to examine longer term trends of
the RFI.
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Fig. 6. RFI measured for the 18.7 GHz V-pol channels of AMSR-E and
AMSR2. Top: Maximum measured RFI Index over 1 month period (October
2017). Middle: Percentage of various regions with RFI detected with a magni-
tude over 10 K persistently detected more than 10% of the time, as a function of
time. Bottom: Average RFI index for all measurement points within the region
that have been detected with a magnitude over 8 K more than 10% of the time.
Starting first with the 6.9 GHz RFI in Fig. 4, we find that the
RFI environment has been decreasing gradually over the period
of interest in Japan and the United States. In India, this band
has shown increased RFI from 2002 through 2010 followed by
a decrease in RFI afterward. Other areas such as Brazil and
Indonesia have demonstrated a steady increase in RFI extent.
For the 10.65 GHz band, there has been consistent RFI over
Europe from 2002 through 2017. For countries such as Mexico
and Turkey, the X-band RFI has consistently increased, while
Japan has exhibited a gradual decline in RFI.
As for 18.7 GHz, In Brazil, RFI was significant around pop-
ulated places such as Rio de Janeiro, but has declined in Brazil
to where it is almost nonexistent at the present at the level of the
algorithm thresholds. Other places such as Belarus and Libya
show consistently increased RFI. For the United States, much of
the Ku-band RFI stems from reflected RFI from geosynchronous
satellites from lakes and frozen areas. This RFI begins in 2007
and has steadily increased in amplitude as more direct broad-
cast satellites have been placed in orbit. More will be mentioned
about reflected RFI from the ocean in Section V.
IV. DUAL-BAND RFI MITIGATION
The AMSR2 instrument affords a unique assessment of
a dual-band RFI mitigation technique. The AMSR2 instru-
 DRAPER: RADIO FREQUENCY ENVIRONMENT FOR EARTH-OBSERVING PASSIVE MICROWAVE IMAGERS
Fig. 7. RFI Mitigation effectiveness for AMSR2 the C-Band Channels. Top:
Maximum RFI index over a month for the 6.925 GHz V-pol channel. Middle:
Maximum RFI index over a month for the 7.3 GHz V-pol channel. Bottom: For
each measurement over the month, the minimum RFI index of the two frequency
bands is chosen, and the maximum result over the month is shown. AMSR2
data taken from October 2017.
ment measures neighboring the C-Band channels at 6.925 and
7.3 GHz. To implement dual-band RFI mitigation, the geophys-
ical retrievals would simply use the channel in the algorithm
(either 6.925 or 7.3) with lowest RFI index. This technique
mitigates RFI in regions where only one of the bands is con-
taminated. Where both bands are contaminated, the RFI would
remain at the lower of the two levels.
Such a method may be useful for future missions if there is a
requirement for low-bandwidth downlink, or where power con-
straints necessitate lower end Field Programmable Gate Arrays
in digital implementations. We evaluate the effectiveness of us-
ing these two neighboring the C-band channels by examining
the minimum RFI index of the two channels over the world map.
The RFI index has been produced on the native grid for
AMSR2. For each measurement, the RFI index is computed
and the minimum RFI index for the two bands is selected. The
result is shown in Fig. 7. The top figure shows the maximum
V-pol RFI over a one-month period for 6.925 GHz. The mid-
dle plot is the maximum V-pol RFI for 7.3 GHz. The Bottom
shows the result of selecting the minimum RFI index of the two
bands and plotting the maximum of the result over the 1-month
period.
As shown in Fig. 7, the 6.925 GHz channel exhibits heavy
RFI over the continental United States, while the 7.3 channel
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1919
Fig. 8. 10.65–10.7 being in the protected band, GMI (top) does not exhibit
reflected RFI around Europe but does pick up substantial RFI over land. AMSR2
(middle) is also in the protected band, but does see reflected RFI. WindSat
(Bottom) whose bandpass is in the nonprotected satellite transmission band
exhibits significant interference. GMI and AMSR2 data are taken from October
2017 and WindSat data are taken from September 2014.
shows substantially less RFI providing a cleaner product over the
United States. For most of the rest of the world, the 6.925 GHz
channel is much cleaner than 7.3. Using the dual-frequency mit-
igation technique, the number of flagged (exceeding 10 K RFI
index) measurements over a 1 month period dropped from 0.2%
to 0.02% over the earth, a 90% decrease. The analysis suggests
that, although imperfect, a two-band solution removes a substan-
tial portion of the moderate to high RFI and could be used for
future missions where data downlink or digital processing com-
plexity are limited. This technique would also remove a portion
of the lower-level RFI (< 10 K). Furthermore, analysis would
need to be performed to quantify the mitigation effectiveness
for lower-level RFI.
V. RFI REFLECTED FROM THE OCEAN
Of the bands utilized by microwave imagers, two of the bands
currently also share utility with direct broadcast downlink fre-
quencies and have observed significant interference. The in-
terfering broadcast services are allocated 10.7–12.75 GHz and
17.3–21.2 GHz, both of which are either near or encompass
remote sensing bands.
Fig. 8 shows a comparison of the 10.65 GHz channels on
GMI and AMSR-2 to the 10.7 GHz WindSat band around
 1920 IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN APPLIED EARTH OBSERVATIONS AND REMOTE SENSING, VOL. 11, NO. 6, JUNE 2018
Fig. 9. 18–19 GHZ RFI around the continental United States for GMI (top)
and TMI (Bottom). Even though in the protected band, GMI picks up substantial
RFI from geosynchronous satellites. TMI, at a different center frequency avoids
those transmitters. GMI and TMI data are taken from October 2014.
Europe. All sensors show heavy land-based RFI in Europe.
As for reflected RFI off the ocean, GMI carefully maintains its
passband within the ITU allocation for passive earth observation
between 10.6 and 10.7 GHz. No contamination from reflected
geosynchronous satellite signals over the ocean around Europe
is observed by GMI in this band [34].
Moderate amounts of reflected RFI are observed around the
European continent for AMSR2 and heavy RFI is observed for
WindSat, which has a much broader bandwidth that ventures
into the heavily utilized direct broadcast range. It is interesting
that AMSR2 claims to utilize the same band as GMI, yet still is
corrupted by reflected RFI around Europe.
The AMSR2 sensitivity to 10.65 GHz RFI may be due
to inadequate out-of-band filtering. GMI does not have suffi-
ciently different orbital geometry from AMSR2 and WindSat
to attribute GMI’s absence of reflected RFI around continental
Europe to geometry. All three sensors view the earth at similar
earth incidence angle (55.1° for AMSR2, 52.8° for GMI, and
49.9° for WindSat), and due to the periodic 180° yaw maneu-
vers performed by GMI, the GMI views the earth at all possible
azimuth angles. The only other explanation is poor out-of-band
filtering for AMSR2 10.65 GHz channel.
The 18.7 GHz channels are affected by transmissions from
geosynchronous satellites reflecting off the Great Lakes and
ocean surrounding the continental United States and Hawaii.
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Fig. 10. Top: 18 GHz V-pol RFI index mapped through earth reflection to
the distance of geosynchronous orbit. Middle: Zoomed between −3◦ and +3◦
latitude, −120◦ and −80◦ longitude. Bottom: Average RFI index from −1◦ to
+1◦ latitude for longitudes −120◦ to −80◦ . Also listed in the bottom plot are the
satellites with 18 GHz transmitters at the position of the interference sources.
The Direct broadcast satellites over the continental United States
utilize the 18.3 through 18.8 GHz downlink band, which directly
interferes with the GMI, WindSat and AMSR2 band. The re-
flections are most noticeable over water, but are also noticed
over land as well, likely reflecting off lakes and frozen areas.
The 18.7 GMI band is compared to the 19.35 TMI band around
the continental United States in Fig. 9. The TMI RFI index does
not exhibit the same reflections, suggesting that the 19.35 GHz
band would be better suited for ocean applications in future
sensors.
To identify the interfering direct broadcast satellites, the GMI
18.7 GHz RFI index is projected to the location on the geosyn-
chronous sphere where the satellites would need to be located
such that the transmitted signal would reflect off the earth /ocean
surface and be received by the main beam of the GMI antenna.
The results of projecting the RFI index through reflection off
the earth onto the geosynchronous sphere are shown in Fig. 10.
Most of the RFI sources concentrate on a small number of points
around zero latitude and longitude from −80 to −120 degrees.
The satellites that transmit in the GMI 18 GHz at those longi-
tudes are given in the bottom plot of Fig. 10. All these satellites
are used for high-speed internet or direct broadcast TV and all
utilize the GMI 18-GHz band. Furthermore, discussion about
the reflected RFI is found in [27].
 DRAPER: RADIO FREQUENCY ENVIRONMENT FOR EARTH-OBSERVING PASSIVE MICROWAVE IMAGERS
VI. CONCLUSION
Dealing with RFI has been an on-going struggle for mi-
crowave earth remote sensing applications, especially around
populated areas. Terrestrial-based transmitters and direct broad-
cast satellite reflections from the ocean corrupt earth remote
sensing measurements from sub-Kelvin up to hundreds of
Kelvins. The generalized RFI index method presented in this
paper provides moderate to high sensitivity for detecting RFI
over both land and ocean.
Using the AMSR-E and AMSR2 combined dataset, we find
that the RFI environment has been slowly evolving since 2002.
During this time, for some more established areas such as the
United States, land-based RFI has gradually decreased in extent,
while in more developing areas, its extent has widened.
We find that utilizing a dual-band RFI mitigation technique
such AMSR-2 the C-Band channels, can be an effective method
of removing much of the high-level RFI. Even if explicit on-
board mitigation is not employed, band selection should in-
volve knowledge of the environment, which can impact the spe-
cific requirements of environmental data products. For example,
for ocean applications, it may be beneficial to avoid the bands
from 10.7 through 12.75 GHz, 18.3 through 18.8 GHz and 19.7
through 20.2 GHz to eliminate or minimize direct broadcast
signal reflections from the oceans.
Given the widespread and changing RFI environment at the
C-Band through the Ku-Band, a viable long-term solution for
future sensors is to build RFI mitigation into the on-board pro-
cessing. Current research as well as on-orbit missions such as
SMAP is showing much promise to such an end.
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David W. Draper (M’12) received the B.S. degree
and the Ph.D. degree from Brigham Young Univer-
sity, Provo UT, USA, both in electrical engineering
in 2000 and 2003, respectively.
Since 2004, he has been with Ball Aerospace and
Technologies Corp., Boulder, CO, USA, as a Sys-
tems Engineer on the Ozone Mapping and Profiler
Suite (OMPS), GMI, Weather System Follow-on –
Microwave (WSF-M), and various other programs.
He was the calibration lead for the GMI instrument.
He currently is the Mission Performance Lead for
the WSF-M mission. His research interests and experience from industry and
academia include estimation theory, active and passive microwave remote sens-
ing, microwave radiometer calibration, and radiometer RFI mitigation.
Dr. Draper is a member of Tau Beta Pi, and was a fellow of that society in
2000–2001. He was the recipient of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing
Society Transaction Prize paper award in 2004. He was the recipient of the
Engineering Excellence Award from Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp
in 2015. He serves as part of the of the Precipitation Measurement Missions
(PMM) Intersatellite Calibration (X-CAL) working group, which received the
2015 PMM Science Team Award from NASA.