Assessment model of atmosphere transmitting influence on high-resolution airborne SAR stereo positioning

Abstract

The influence derived from atmosphere transmitting of radar wave, in the application of high-resolution airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) stereo positioning, may produce some phase errors, and eventually be introduced into positioning model. This paper described the principle of airborne SAR stereo positioning and the error sources of stereo positioning accuracy that arose from atmosphere transmitting, established a corresponding assessment model of atmosphere transmitting influence, and testified the model and the assessment principle taking the 1-m resolution airborne SAR images of Zigong City, Sichuan Province in China, as the test dataset. The test result has proved that the assessment model is reliable and reasonable. And, it has shown that the phase error arisen from time delay is the main error source during the atmosphere transmitting, which has much more influences on cross-track direction and introduces a stereo positioning error of about eight meters, but less on the along-track direction.