2014 Third International Workshop on Earth Observation and Remote Sensing Applications
A multipath forward scattering model of GNSS-
Reflectometry From bare soil and vegetation
Xuerui Wu1, 2*
1. Shanghai Astronomical Observatory,
Chinese Academy of Sciences,
Shanghai 200030, China
2. Resoure and Environment Sciences Department,
Chifeng University,
Chifeng, Inner Mongolia 024000, China
xueruiwu@126.com;xueruiwu@hotmail.com
Abstract—In the past two decades, GNSS-R (Global
Navigation Satellite System-Reflectometry) has been emerged as
a new kind of microwave remote sensing technique. The reflected
signals of the GNSS constellations and the direct ones form the
typical bistatic or multi-static radar working mode. While, for
one side, a new kind of special GNSS-R receivers should be
developed to enhance the reflected signals. For the other side, the
traditional off-the-shelf geodetic GPS receivers can be used. For
the latter ones, their observations contain the interference signals
of the direct and reflected signals. The reflected signals as
multipath can be used for the detections of the interested
geophysical parameters after removing or eliminating the direct
signals. However, nowadays, the popular multipath estimations
are either empirical ones or focusing on the code modulations,
which are not adequate for the physical explanations of the
multipath interactions, especially for GNSS-R applications. This
paper focuses on developing the physical forward multipath
single-scattering model, which is a fully polarimetric forward
model. Since the scattering properties of the reflected surface are
one of the most important factors for the multipath, it is
necessary to develop the surface scattering model for the forward
multipath model. However, for the circular polarization
properties, the calculation of the original Fresnel coefficient is
substituted by the specular reflectivity model, so not only the
magnitudes are changed, but also the phase differences are
changed. Here, the wave synthesis technique is used to calculate
the circular polarization. Dielectric constants of soil are
calculated using the semi-empirical model. The surface coherent
scattering model is added into the forward multipath model. The
default input parameters of the antenna and receivers are used.
As for low vegetation, the bistatic scattering model based on the
first-order radiative transfer equation model is replaced with the
original Fresnel reflectivity and inserted into the forward
multipath simulator. Comparisons of GPS observables for bare
soil and wheat are also done. The oscillations and the final
simulated multipath signals and their dynamic ranges are all
acceptable. The amplitudes of GPS observables for wheat-
covered surface are lower than bare soil for smaller elevation
angles(<30°) and they become larger while the elevation angles
are larger(>30°). Theoretical modeling of the GPS multipath
signals shows that it can be an efficient tool for the interpretation
of GNSS-R measurements.
978-1-4799-4184-1/14/$31.00 ©2014 IEEE
Shuanggen Jin
1. Shanghai Astronomical Observatory,
Chinese Academy of Sciences,
Shanghai 200030, China
Keywords—GNSS-R; Multipath, SNR; Specular reflectivity;
Wave synthesis; radiative transfer equation model
I. INTRODUCTION
The remote sensing of GNSS-R has been paid much
attention during the past two decades due to its unique
advantages of small cost, low power and high time/spatial
resolutions. On one side, a special GNSS-R receiver should be
designed to collect the reflected signals or the interference of
the direct and reflected signals, such as the DMR (Delay
Doppler Maps Receiver) receivers used in the BAO-Tower
(Boulder Atmospheric Observatory-tower) experiment or
SMEX (Soil Moisture Experiments) airborne experiment [2,
3]. On the other hand, it is pointed out recently that the GPS
receivers primarily used in the geophysical and geodetic
applications can be used for estimating the geophysical
parameters surrounding the GPS antennas [4, 5]. That is to say,
the multipath information can be used for the estimations of
near-surface soil moisture, vegetation and ice/snow
characteristics[4,5]. However, to better understand the
mechanisms of how these geophysical parameters lead to
multipath variability, an electrodynamics model of GPS direct
and reflected signals interference has been built by Zavorotny
et al. [6]. Later on, this model has been extended and a forward
modeling of GPS multipath for reflectometry and positioning
applications has been established by Nievinski and Larson[7],
the model is a fully polarimetric forward model, which
accounts for the GPS broadcast signals and the surface
responses as well. In this following, the Fresnel theory was
used and it has been modified as in section 2 to account for the
specular scattering of bare soil. Multipath simulations of bare
soil is also presented. In section 3, the bistatic scattering model
of vegetation is replaced into the GPS forward multipath
simulator. Finally, the conclusions are given in Section 4.
II. MULTIPATH SIMULATIONS OF BARE SOIL
It is usually used the Fresnel theory to calculate the
specular scattering reflectivity (Equation1, Equation2).
2014 Third International Workshop on Earth Observation and Remote Sensing Applications

As can be seen in Fig.1, as for the RR and LR

ε cos θ − ε − sin 2 θ
rv = reflectivity calculated by (3) and (4). RR increase while LR
ε cos θ + ε − sin 2 θ (1) decrease as the incidence angle increase. As for the
incidence is smaller than 70°, LR is larger than RR. While
cos θ − ε − sin θ 2
if the incidence angle is overpass 70°, RR is larger than
rh =
cos θ + ε − sin 2 θ (2)
LR.
However, as for the reflectivity calculated by (6) and (7),
the trend is very different from the previous ones ((3) and (4)).
ε is the dielectric constant, θ is the incidence angle. rv RR decrease and LR increase as the incidence angle increase,
if θ ≤ 70 , RR>LR, but if θ > 70 , RR<LR. The
0 D
and rh are the reflectivity at V and H polarization
(Equation3, Equation4), respectively [6,7,8]. reflectivity trends of RR and LR are very different from the
previous one.
1
ℜ RR = ℜ LL = ( ℜVV + ℜHH ) (3) It is well known that most of the multipath forward models
2 focus on the code modulation, which adopt arbitrary values for
1 the reflected power. Or empirical power is used for the
ℜ RL = ℜLR = ( ℜVV − ℜ HH ) (4) calculations of reflected signals.
2
In this paper, we improved the forward multipath models
recently developed by Nievinski and Larson [7] by replace the
Originally, (3) and (4) are usually used for the Fresnel reflectivity (Equation6 and Equation7) with the ones in
calculations of reflectivity at RR and LR polarization. (3) and (4).
However, the phase difference is not considered as
calculations from linear to circular. Therefore, the wave 60
synthesis technique is exploited here [9] (Equation5). SNR (dB)
50
4π
σrt0 ( ψr , τr ; ψt , τt ) = ( I ⋅ Q ⋅ M ⋅ It ) 40
A r (5) 30
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80

10
Carrier phase (mm)

A is the illumination area, Ir and It are the modified stokes

vectors. Q is a rotating matrix, while M is the Mueller 0

matrix. And the calculations of RR and LR are like the

following (Equation6, Equation7). -10
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80

σ RR = σ LL = 4* π *
⎛ r +r
⎜ v ( h
2 2
)
Re ( rv rh* ) ⎞⎟
10
Code (cm)

− (6)
⎜⎜ 4 2 ⎟⎟ 0

⎝ ⎠ -10

( )
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
⎛ r +r 2 2
Re ( rv rh* ) ⎞⎟
Elevation angle (degrees)

σ RL = σ LR = 4* π * ⎜ v h
+ (7) Fig.2 Code, Carrier phase and SNR versus the elevation angle
⎜⎜ 4 2 ⎟⎟
⎝ ⎠
Fig. 2 presents the GPS observables and the oscillations and
the final simulated multipath signals and their dynamic ranges
are all acceptable. There are apparent oscillations for the code,
carrier phase and SNR at smaller incidence angle ( θ < 30D ),
where the multipath information is relatively rich.
III. MULTIPATH SIMULATIONS OF VEGETATION

The Fresnel reflectivity with the dielectric constants of

Fig.1. Fresnel Reflectivity calculated by the original Fresnel theory
and the one used in wave synthesis
vegetation as inputs is used to calculate the surface
properties in the original forward multipath simulator [7].
However, the microwave scattering model based on the
first-order radiative transfer equation model is employed
here to represent the vegetation scattering properties. It is
thought that this improvement of the multipath simulator is

978-1-4799-4184-1/14/$31.00 ©2014 IEEE

2014 Third International Workshop on Earth Observation and Remote Sensing Applications

more suitable to interpret the internal scattering mechanisms

and it is very important to explain the vegetation environment. 5 5

The original backscattering Mimics (the Michigan

Microwave Canopy Scattering Model) has been developed for 0
0
the bistatic radar systems, referred to as Bi-Mimics (the bistatic
Mimics model) [10,11]. Using the wave synthesis technique -5
(Equation5), Bi-Mimics is able to calculate the bistatic -5
scattering coefficients of any combinations of transmit and

Reflectivity(dB)

Reflectivity(dB)
-10
receive polarizations.
-10
Here, the above mentioned Bi-Mimics model is inserted to
-15
the multipath simulator, which is now able to combine the
antenna type and vegetation surface scattering properties. -15
-20
50 V-Soil RR-Soil
-20 H-Soil LR-soil
SNR(dB)

-25
40 VV-veg RR-veg
soil
HH-veg LR-veg
wheat
30 -25 -30
10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 0 20 40 60 80 0 20 40 60 80
Elevation angle(°) Elevation angle(°)
Elevation angle (degrees)
Fig.4. Specular scattering comparisons of the wheat and bare soil
Phas e (m m )

10

0
soil
-10 wheat IV. CONCLUSIONS
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
GNSS-R has been emerged as a new remote sensing
Elevation angle (degrees)
technique in the past two decades. The geodetic and
20
geophysical GPS receivers have been used directly to remotely
Code (cm )

0 sense the soil moisture, vegetation, snow/ice or some other

-20
10 20 30 40 50
Elevation Angle
Fig. 3. GPS multipath simulation comparisons of wheat and bare soil
Comparisons of GPS observables for bare soil and wheat
are shown in Fig. 3, which shows that wheat decreases the
amplitudes of code, phase and SNR at smaller elevation
angles(θ <30°)， but wheat increases the amplitudes at larger
elevation angles(θ>30°). The corresponding specular
scattering coefficients of bare soil and wheat are shown in Fig.
4. It can be seen that the scattering coefficients of bare soil are
larger than wheat for smaller elevation angles (θ <20°), while
they are larger forθ >20°.
The apparent wheat effects on the final GPS observables
depict that the geodetic or geophysical GPS receivers can be a
potentially efficient technique for vegetation detections.
soil geophysical parameters. However, most of the forward
wheat
multipath models are either based on the mode modulation or
60 70 80 empirical values. In this paper, the specular reflectivities at RR
and LR polarizations are calculated using the wave synthesis
technique and then inserted into the recently developed full
polarimetric multipath model. The code, carrier phase and SNR
are simulated. Results show that the multipath information is
relatively rich at the smaller incidence angles. In order to
simulate the multipath signals of vegetation, the Fresnel
reflectivity model is replaced with the first order radiative
transfer equation model, which is inserted into the original
GPS multipath simulator. Comparisons of GPS observables
from bare soil and wheat show that low vegetation apparently
affect the amplitudes of the code, phase and SNR. Theoretical
modeling of the multipath effects supports the data
interpretation, and provides the physical relationship between
the measured observables and the electromagnetic waves as
well as the physical basis for the further retrieval algorithms.
The developed multipath forward single-scattering model will
be further tested using the experimental GPS data.
Modifications of the multipath forward scattering model
focusing on the scattering mechanisms of snow covered
surface will be studied in the future.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This research is supported by the Natural Science
Foundation of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of
China (Grant No. 2013MS0602), Shanghai Science and
Technology Commission Project (Grant No. 12DZ2273300),

978-1-4799-4184-1/14/$31.00 ©2014 IEEE

2014 Third International Workshop on Earth Observation and Remote Sensing Applications
National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) Project
(Grant No. 11173050 and 11373059)
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