Inclined Geosynchronous Spaceborne–Airborne Bistatic SAR: Performance Analysis and Mission Design

Abstract

Geosynchronous synthetic aperture radar (GEO-SAR) offers new opportunities for continuous Earth observation missions with large coverage and short revisit cycle. The unique features of GEO-SAR present huge potentials for bistatic observation applications. In this paper, the concept and advantages of GEO bistatic SAR (GEO-BiSAR) are first investigated. The system consists of a GEO illuminator and an airborne receiver, such as an airplane or a near-space vehicle. Compared with a monostatic GEO-SAR system, the bistatic configuration can provide finer spatial resolution and higher signal-to-noise ration (SNR) with less system complexity. The spatial resolution characteristics are then analyzed based on generalized ambiguity function, where the time-varying GEO velocity, Earth rotation, and ellipsoid Earth surface are taken into consideration. Meanwhile, the bistatic SNR is analyzed using the integration equation model. In this paper, the mission design for GEO-BiSAR aims at identifying a set of receiver flight parameters and bistatic configurations to obtain the desired spatial resolution and SNR. Based on the desired imaging performance of a specific application background, the mission design process is modeled as a nonlinear equation system (NES). Finally, a mission design method based on fast nondominated sorting genetic algorithm is proposed to solve the NES and obtain multiple optimal solutions to guide the receiver flight missions. Examples of the mission design process are given to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The results of the mission design can be conveniently used to guide the receiver flight mission for the desired imaging performance, which is highly desirable in practical applications.