The rough surface scattering or emission model is one of the essential components in many applications of microwave remote sensing of geophysical properties in the complex earth terrain and sea. In building the framework using Maxwell’s equations, radiative transfer equations, or their hybrid, it is preliminary to model the rough surface representing the target under consideration. Naturally occurring rough surfaces are commonly multiscale, anisotropic, and inhomogeneous. Without properly describing and sampling the surfaces, it is highly probable to produce unacceptable bias and error in scattering or emission predictions, even with rigorous scattering or emission models. The scattering or emission model selected for demonstration in this talk is the IEM-based version, the AIEM. We show the rough surface scattering and emission from the soil surfaces, ocean surfaces, rough boundaries in snow-covered sea ice, and ice layers. The talk summarizes several points relevant to selecting a scattering or emission model for data interpretation from a statistically describable natural terrain.

About the Speaker

Prof. Kun-Shan Chen

Kun-Shan Chen (Fellow, IEEE) received a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington in 1990. 1992-2014, he was a professor at the National Central University in Taiwan. From 2014-2024, he was with the Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China, and Guilin University of Technology. He joined the Institute of Space Earth Science, Nanjing University, as Professor and Executive Dean, where his research interests include microwave remote sensing theory, modeling, system and measurement, and electromagnetic sensing techniques. He has authored and co-authored over 400 referred journal articles and conference papers, contributed ten book chapters, and is the co-author (with A. K. Fung) of Microwave Scattering and Emission Models for Users (Artech House, 2010), the author of Principles of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR): A System Simulation Approach (CRC Press, 2015), the coeditor (with X. Li, H. Guo, and X. Yang) of Advances in SAR Remote Sensing of Ocean (CRC et al., USA, 2018), and the author of Radar Scattering and Imaging of Rough Surface: Modeling and Applications With MATLAB (CRC Press, 2020). His research interests include microwave remote sensing theory, modeling, system and measurement, and electromagnetic sensing.

Dr. Chen is a member of Academia Europaea. He was the IEEE GRSS Adcom Member from 2010 to 2014. He received the 2021 IEEE GRSS Fawwaz Ulaby Distinguished Achievement Award for contributing to microwave scattering and emission modeling of rough surfaces and radar image simulation and understanding. He was the Founding Chair of the GRSS Taipei Chapter. He was the Co-Chair of the Technical Committee for IGARSS 2016, IGARSS2017, and IGARSS 2020. His academic activities include as a Deputy Editor-in-Chief Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, the Guest Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing Special Issue on Remote Sensing for Major Disaster Prevention, Monitoring and Assessment in 2007, the Founding Deputy Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing from 2008 to 2010, and the Guest Editor for the Proceedings of the IEEE Special Issue on Remote Sensing for Natural Disaster in 2012. He also served as the Guest Editor for the Special Issue on Data Restoration and Denoising of Remote Sensing Data and the Special Issue on Radar Imaging Theory, Techniques, and Applications, both for Remote Sensing. He has been a member of the Editorial Board of the Proceedings of the IEEE from 2014 to 2019. He has been an Editorial Board member of IEEE Access since 2020.