Operational RFI Mitigation Approach in Sentinel-1 IPF

Radio Frequency Interferences (RFI) are affecting more and more spaceborne SAR missions due to the increasing number of ground (or even space) emitters transmitting in the frequency band allocated for Earth Observation. Operative L-band SAR missions such ALOS and SAOCOM already foresee RFI mitigation strategies at processing level. Many cases of RFI contamination have been observed by Sentinel-1 users as well. For this reason, the Sentinel-1 operational processor (IPF) was evolved with the capability of RFI detection and mitigation. This paper describes the strategy implemented in the Sentinel-1 IPF, including examples and statistics collected during the first months of operational RFI mitigation.