A Ku-Band Passive Microwave Radiometer Payload for Sea Ice Remote Sensing Cubesat Mission

We present the design, simulation, and implementation of a prototype passive microwave radiometer for sea ice remote sensing. The lightweight and low-cost Ku-band radiometer is the payload unit of a new 3U satellite CubeSat mission, called ArcticSat. The design concept was developed in connection with mission requirements and simulations were performed in Keysight Genesys software. The developed radiometer will fit within 1U (10cm by 10 cm by 10cm) while achieving a system gain of 86.9 dB and a noise figure of 2.5 dB. The presented prototype in this paper is the assembled FlatSat version of the radiometer. Verification tests demonstrate the radiometer's ability to detect the temperature of a target.