A New Method for Computing Radar Altimeter Lookup Correction Table and Its Application

Presently, the radar altimeter look-up correction tables are usually computed with an approximate exponential flat sea surface response function, and the effects of this approximation are neglected. In this paper, the errors of this approximation method are analyzed, and a new method of using the accurate flat sea surface response function is derived to compute the look-up correction tables. This new method can greatly decrease the errors when antenna mispointing angle is large. The new method is applied to HY-2 altimeter, and obtains a more accurate result.