Bistatic Synthetic Aperture Radar System Research Articles

UAV-Based Bistatic SAR-Imaging Using a Stationary Repeater

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is an established technique for high-resolution radar imaging relying on the ego-motion of the radar. The long coherent integration time of the radar in conjunction with a linear or circular trajectory enables the illumination of targets under different observation angles leading to robustness against short-time interference signals. The use of a bistatic setup to simultaneously acquire multiple observation angles further increases the aforementioned benefits. In this work, a bistatic SAR system using an active repeater is proposed, in the following called Bistatic Repeater-SAR (BR-SAR). In BR-SAR the repeater acts as a second observer providing a bistatic path with low system cost and hardware effort. This article discusses the BR-SAR approach with all signal processing and hardware considerations necessary to build the bistatic radar system. This includes a description of the full system and signal chain with a focus on the signal separation and evaluation of both monostatic and bistatic signals and the subsequent SAR processing. The approach is verified via simulations and measurements, in which conventional SAR is compared to the proposed BR-SAR system. Hardware effects leading to a deteriorated system performance of the bistatic system are analyzed and countermeasures are discussed and implemented. Finally, the benefits of the bistatic system are demonstrated based on a realistic measurement scenario.

An Advanced Approach to Improve Synchronization Phase Accuracy with Compressive Sensing for LT-1 Bistatic Spaceborne SAR

In the bistatic synthetic aperture radar (BiSAR) system, the unavoidable frequency deviation between the oscillators (USOs) will result in additional phase modulation in the demodulated radar signal, which significantly degrades the quality of the SAR image and digital elevation model (DEM) product. The innovative L-band spaceborne BiSAR system LuTan-1 (LT-1) employs a non-interrupted synchronization scheme to acquire the synchronization phase error. This advanced phase synchronization scheme avoids interrupting the normal BiSAR data acquisition and further increases the synchronization frequency. However, some non-ideal factors in the transmission link like attenuation, multipath effect, interference, etc., may cause the synchronization phase to be polluted by noise. A phase denoising approach based on compressive sensing (CS) is proposed to improve the accuracy of synchronization phase. The imaging phase with high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is input into the K-SVD algorithm to learn the prior information, and then the noise of the synchronization compensation phase is eliminated by maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimation. The data acquired from the ground validation system of the LT-1 synchronization module are adopted for the validation experiment. The proposed phase denoising method achieves higher phase synchronization accuracy compared with traditional ones. The processing results verify the effectiveness of the proposed method and demonstrate its potential for future on-orbit applications of the LT-1 mission.

Synchronization for mini‐UAV‐based high‐resolution BiSAR systems: Lost direct signal estimation based on Hampel filtering

In mini-unmanned aerial vehicle-based high-resolution bistatic synthetic aperture radar systems, the rotation of the unmanned aerial vehicle platforms will cause direct signal loss, resulting in the reduction of synchronization error compensation accuracy. Here, a synchronization algorithm is proposed to estimate the lost direct signal. First, bistatic time and phase synchronization signal models are established. Then, Hampel filtering is used to estimate the time delay of the lost direct signal, and the time and phase synchronization errors are estimated based on third-order polynomial fitting. A high-resolution synthetic aperture radar image is used to demonstrate the validity of the proposed algorithm in mini-unmanned aerial vehicle-based high-resolution bistatic synthetic aperture radar systems.

Soil Moisture Retrieval Using Multistatic L-Band SAR and Effective Roughness Modeling

The interest in bistatic SAR systems for soil moisture monitoring has grown over recent years, since theoretical studies suggest that the impact of surface roughness on the retrieval of soil moisture decreases when multistatic, i.e., simultaneous mono- and bistatic, radar measurements are used. This paper presents a semi-empirical method to retrieve soil moisture over bare agricultural fields, based on effective roughness modeling, and applies it to a series of L-band fully-polarized SAR backscatter and bistatic scattering observations. The main advantage of using effective roughness parameters is that surface roughness no longer needs to be measured in the field, what is known to be the main source of error in soil moisture retrieval applications. By means of cross-validation, it is shown that the proposed method results in accurate soil moisture retrieval with an RMSE well below 0.05 m3/m3, with the best performance observed for the cross-polarized backscatter signal. In addition, different experimental SAR monostatic and bistatic configurations are evaluated in this study using the proposed retrieval technique. Results illustrate that the soil moisture retrieval performance increases by using backscatter data in multiple polarizations simultaneously, compared to the case where backscatter observations in only one polarization mode are used. Furthermore, the retrieval performance of a multistatic system has been evaluated and compared to that of a traditional monostatic system. The recent BELSAR campaign (in 2018) provides time-series of experimental airborne SAR measurements in two bistatic geometries, i.e., the across-track (XTI) and along-track (ATI) flight configuration. For both configurations, bistatic observations are available in the backward region. The results show that the simultaneous use of backscatter and bistatic scattering data does not result in a profound increase in retrieval performance for the bistatic configuration flown during BELSAR 2018. As theoretical studies demonstrate a strong improvement in retrieval performance when using backscatter and bistatic scattering coefficients in the forward region simultaneously, the introduction of additional bistatic airborne campaigns with more promising multistatic SAR configurations is highly recommended.

수치표고모델을 이용한 지형 레이다 반사 면적 생성 및 바이스태틱 SAR 영상합성 기술 연구

In this study, we simulated target data for bistatic synthetic aperture radar (SAR) using a digital elevation model (DEM), raw data acquisition, and image synthesis. Using the DEM, target data similar to the actual topography could be generated. In particular, the reflectivity of the target was calculated from the geometrical structure between the SAR and the target. To verify and estimate the proposed method, we generated target data using bistatic SAR system modeling and simulated raw data acquisition. Finally, we compared the DEM and SAR images synthesized using the polar format algorithm (PFA).

SDR-Implemented Passive Bistatic SAR System Using Sentinel-1 Signal and Its Experiment Results

A fixed-receiver mobile-transmitter passive bistatic synthetic aperture radar (MF-PB-SAR) system, which uses the Sentinel-1 SAR satellite as its non-cooperative emitting source, has been developed by using embedded software-defined radio (SDR) hardware for high-resolution imaging of the targets in a local area in this study. Firstly, Sentinel-1 and the designed system are introduced. Then, signal model, signal pre-processing methods, and effective target imaging methods are presented. At last, various experiment results of target imaging obtained at different locations are shown to validate the developed system and the proposed methods. It was found that targets in a range of several kilometers can be well imaged.

Estimation of coherence of the signal reflected from objects on Earth's surface in bistatic space SAR system

Estimation of coherence of the signal reflected from objects on Earth's surface in bistatic space SAR system

Tilt Phenomenon in Bistatic SAR Image

The tilt phenomenon or skew in bistatic synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images has been known. This can be observed from the SAR image of a point-like scatterer, even with a symmetrical bistatic aperture. This letter explains this phenomenon in bistatic SAR images and shows that the phenomenon depends on the initial and the last positions of the transmitter and receiver platforms. A formula to calculate the tilt angle based on a general bistatic geometry is provided. This formula supports bistatic SAR system design and bistatic image quality measurements.

Hybrid SAR-ISAR Image Formation via Joint FrFT-WVD Processing for BFSAR Ship Target High-Resolution Imaging

Bistatic forward-looking synthetic aperture radar (BFSAR) is a kind of bistatic SAR system that can image forward-looking terrain in the flight direction of the receiver. Current literature and reports about BFSAR mainly concentrate on the stationary scene and ground-moving target imaging. Unlike stationary and ground-moving targets, the translational and rotational movements of ship targets usually lead to complicated range cell migration (RCM) and Doppler frequency migration (DFM). Moreover, the characteristics of RCM and DFM for different scattering points of the ship target are significantly different, i.e., the characteristics of the RCM and DFM are 2-D spatial variation, ultimately leading to severe defocusing of ship target in the SAR image. To solve these problems, a kind of hybrid SAR-ISAR imaging formation is proposed for BFSAR ship target imaging. First, to solve the problem of the Doppler ambiguity caused by the forward-looking mode of the receiver, an efficient ambiguity estimation method based on the minimum entropy criterion is presented. Then, keystone transform and range alignment processing can be applied to correct the spatial variant range walk and higher order RCM, respectively. Moreover, in order to obtain a high-resolution and well-focused image after translational compensation, a new method based on the fractional Fourier transform (FrFT) and the Wigner–Ville distribution (WVD) is proposed, where FrFT is applied to separate the multiple main scattering points in each range cell, and WVD is applied to obtain the high-resolution time–frequency distribution of each scattering point. Compared with the conventional ISAR range-Doppler (RD) algorithm and time–frequency estimation-based imaging methods, this method not only has no cross terms but also has high processing accuracy and better antinoise performance.

An Advanced Phase Synchronization Scheme Based on Coherent Integration and Waveform Diversity for Bistatic SAR

In the bistatic synthetic aperture radar (BiSAR) system, the deviation between two oscillators in different platforms will cause an additional modulation of BiSAR echoes. Therefore, phase synchronization is one of the key issues that must be addressed for the BiSAR system. The oscillator phase error model and the principle of phase synchronization are firstly described. The waveform diversity technology has been widely used in many fields, for example, the hearing aids device and the recognition of auditory input source in cocktail party problem. Inspired by this, an advanced phase synchronization scheme based on coherent integration and waveform diversity is proposed. The synchronization signal and radar signal are orthogonal signals which can be separated by using waveform diversity technique. After extracting the synchronization signal, the phase synchronization accuracy can be further improved by coherent integration. The transmission of synchronization signals between two synchronization antennas is analyzed, followed by the theoretical error analysis. Then, the processing of separating the echo signal and synchronization signal is described in detail. The simulation experiments are performed. The accuracy of phase synchronization can reach 1 degree, which verifies the effectiveness of the proposed synchronization scheme.

Ground Moving Target Indication for the Geosynchronous-Low Earth Orbit Bistatic Multichannel SAR System

In this article, an effective clutter suppression and moving target imaging approach is proposed for the geosynchronous-low earth orbit (GEO-LEO) bistatic multichannel synthetic aperture radar (SAR) system, which is robust for the fast moving target with Doppler centroid ambiguity. For the GEO-LEO bistatic multichannel SAR system, the characteristic of baseline with azimuth invariant in Doppler Fourier transform domain is not tenable. It is difficult to implement clutter suppression by the unified baseline compensation in azimuth Doppler Fourier transform domain. Fortunately, we discover that the baseline can be approximately regarded as a constant in chirp Fourier transform domain for the GEO-LEO bistatic multichannel SAR system. Hence, the corresponding baseline compensation can be achieved in the azimuth chirp Fourier transform domain for the clutter. With an orthogonality vector of clutter, the clutter can be well suppressed and the moving target is extracted. After that, the moving target imaging approach is developed with the baseband Doppler centroid estimation and Doppler ambiguity number estimation. Finally, the theoretical investigations and the proposed approach in this article are validated by some experiments, where the experiments for clutter suppression and experiments for fast moving targets are included. Especially, an experiment with real SAR scattering scene is involved. In addition, some discussions for blind velocity targets are presented.

Area Resolution for Bistatic Ultrawideband Ultrawidebeam SAR

Conventional SAR resolution equations cannot be applied to ultrawideband ultrawidebeam systems, particularly, bistatic ultrawideband ultrawidebeam systems. This is because the dependence of system frequency response in the range and across range is not considered. In this case, area resolution, i.e., area of the resolution cell, will be an alternative. This article introduces a new area resolution formula for bistatic ultrawideband ultrawidebeam SAR systems based on the relationship between radar signal frequency, range, and cross-range wavenumbers for bistatic synthetic aperture radar.

The Processing Framework and Experimental Verification for the Noninterrupted Synchronization Scheme of LuTan-1

The bistatic synthetic aperture radar (BiSAR) plays an important role in remote sensing. However, the deviation between the two oscillators in BiSAR systems will cause a residual modulation of the echo signal. Therefore, the phase synchronization is an important issue that must be addressed in the BiSAR system. An advanced noninterrupted phase synchronization scheme is used for LuTan-1. The synchronization pulses are exchanged immediately after the ending time of the radar echo receiving window and before the starting time of the next pulse repetition interval, which will not interrupt the normal SAR operation. In order to evaluate the accuracy of the phase synchronization scheme, the model of phase synchronization is introduced at first. The hardware design and processing flow of LuTan-1 are introduced in detail. An innovative internal calibration strategy is also described. Then, the test data acquired by the ground validation system are analyzed to verify the effectiveness of the phase synchronization scheme. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and the synchronization rate are the two most important factors to influence the accuracy in phase synchronization. The conclusions have guiding significance for the synchronization module design of LuTan-1 and the future BiSAR system.

Implementation of a Phase Synchronization Scheme Based on Pulsed Signal at Carrier Frequency for Bistatic SAR.

Phase synchronization is one of the key technical challenges and prerequisites for the bistatic synthetic aperture radar (SAR) system, which can form a single-pass interferometry system to perform topographic mapping. In this paper, an advanced phase synchronization scheme based on a pulsed signal at carrier frequency is proposed for a bistatic SAR system and it is verified by a ground validation system. In the proposed phase synchronization scheme, the pulsed signal at carrier frequency is used for phase synchronization link, and it is exchanged by virtue of a time slot between radar signals. The feasibility of the scheme is proven by theoretical analysis of various factors affecting the performance of phase synchronization, and the reliability of the scheme is verified by the test results of the ground validation system.

Modeling the Optimal Baseline for a Spaceborne Bistatic SAR System to Generate DEMs

Interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) is one of the best methods for obtaining digital elevation models (DEMs). However, the problem of the uncertainty of DEM accuracy affected by the perpendicular baseline still persists, which should be as long as possible to ensure the sensitivity of the phase to the height measurement, and as small as possible to ensure a high spatial coherence. Moreover, the baseline configuration design of bistatic SAR system lacks a more detailed model for reference to generate high-precision DEM. Therefore, in this paper, the optimal baseline is modeled to maximize the accuracy of height measurement. First, we analyze the influence of system parameters on the height measurement accuracy, and a propagation model from the parameter estimation error to the elevation error is derived. Then, the phase unwrapping error (PUE) that considers the spatial baseline coherence, terrain slope and phase unwrapping effectiveness is modeled and analyzed after interferometric phase simulation and adaptive unscented Kalman filter phase unwrapping. Combining the relationship between the height error and the PUE, the optimal baseline model is obtained by statistical analysis. Finally, weighted averages are used to calculate the average slope of the complex terrain and the validity and reliability of the proposed optimal baseline model are verified by two examples of complex terrains with uniformly and nonuniformly distributed positive and negative slope angles. Moreover, the optimal baseline ranges of different terrain types are also derived for reference.

A Fourier-Based Image Formation Algorithm for Geo-Stationary GNSS-Based Bistatic Forward-Looking Synthetic Aperture Radar.

A Geo-Stationary GNSS-based Bistatic Forward-Looking Synthetic Aperture Radar (GeoSta-GNSS-BFLSAR) system is a particular kind of passive bistatic SAR system. In this system, a geo-stationary GNSS is used as the transmitter, while the receiver is deployed on a moving aircraft, which travels towards a target in a straight line. It is expected that such a radar system has potential for self-landing, self-navigation and battlefield information acquisition applications, etc. Up to now, little information from a research perspective can be found about GeoSta-GNSS-BFLSAR systems. To address this information gap, this paper proposes a preliminary image formation algorithm for GeoSta-GNSS-BFLSAR. The full details of the mathematical derivation are given. It is highlighted that, to overcome the long dwell time and spatial variance of GeoSta-GNSS-BFLSAR, a modified migration correction factor must be designed. In addition, the system performances and technical limitations of GeoSta-GNSS-BFLSAR such as focusing depth and spatial resolution are analytically discussed. In the end, a set of simulations including the image formation algorithm, focusing depth and spatial resolution were conducted for verification. It is demonstrated that the focusing performances of the proposed algorithm have a high level of similarity with the theoretical counterparts. This article thus proves the feasibility of GeoSta-GNSS-BFLSAR systems from a simulation level and establishes a foundation for the real applications of such a radar scheme in the future.

A target localization error analysis method for bistatic SAR based on gradient theory

ABSTRACTBistatic range sum (BRS) equation and Doppler equation of bistatic synthetic aperture radar (BiSAR) can be used to achieve target localization in BiSAR images. Because of the double square roots existing in BiSAR range history, it is hard to analyze the target localization error of a BiSAR system by calculating the partial derivatives directly. In this letter, a method utilizing spatial gradient vectors of BRS and Doppler frequency is proposed to derive the analytic solution of localization error for BiSAR. The effectiveness of the method is validated by a numerical simulation experiment.

A Novel Azimuth Doppler Signal Reconstruction Approach for the GEO-LEO Bi-Static Multi-Channel HRWS SAR System

For the geosynchronous-low earth orbit (GEO-LEO) bi-static multi-channel high-resolution and wide-swath synthetic aperture radar (HRWS SAR) system, a novel azimuth Doppler signal reconstruction algorithm is developed based on an equivalent baseline approximating in the azimuth Doppler chirp Fourier transform domain. The main difficulty for the GEO-LEO bistatic multi-channel HRWS SAR system is that the baseline is variant with the scene in the conventional Doppler Fourier transform domain during azimuth signal reconstruction. The developed approach first employs the linear range cell migration correction and chirp Fourier transform to obtain the coarse-focused ambiguity SAR image. More importantly, the baseline component can be approximated a uniform baseline length for the whole image scene and the ambiguous Doppler spectrum can be reconstructed using the available Doppler signal reconstruction approach. Finally, the experimental results for a simulation GEO-LEO bi-static multi-channel HRWS SAR system are employed to validate the theoretical investigations and the proposed approach.

Point spread function generation method of Geo-stationary GNSS based bistatic forward looking SAR

GNSS based Bistatic Forward Looking Synthetic Aperture Radar (GNSS-BFLSAR) system is particular kind of passive bistatic SAR system. In the system, GNSS is used as the transmitter, while the receiver is mounted on the airplane. The airplane travels along a straight line and the imaging target is in the front. GNSS-BFLSAR is benefited from low cost and good safety. It is widely used in self-landing, self-navigating and battle field information acquiring, etc. This paper is focusing on the investigation of point target 2-D spectrum of GNSS-BFLSAR and Point Spread Function (PSF) generation method. First, a geometric model of such system is built, followed by the generation of echo signal. Then, the analytical formula of 2-D spectrum is obtained. Next, the PSF generation is provided. In the end, the whole procedure is simulated with Matlab. The simulation result verifies the validity of theoretical analysis of this paper and makes a foundation for imaging formation research of such system in the future.

Feasibility, Design, and Deployment Requirements of TCR for Bistatic SAR Radiometric Calibration

The trihedral corner reflector (TCR) is widely used as the calibration device in monostatic synthetic aperture radar (SAR) calibration, and the performance of the TCR in radiometric calibration has been studied and verified in depth. As for the bistatic SAR system calibration problem, there have been few published studies. There is a lack of knowledge regarding the exact bistatic radar cross-section (RCS) pattern of TCR with different bistatic angles, and it is also not clear whether the TCR can be used as the calibration target in bistatic SAR. Moreover, the bistatic and monostatic radar cross-section (RCS) characteristics of the TCR are different, even if the bistatic angle is very small. Therefore, the feasibility, design, and deployment requirements of the TCR for bistatic SAR calibration should be carefully investigated. In this paper, we outline the theoretical and practical requirements that need to be satisfied when choosing appropriate calibration devices for bistatic radiometric calibration. Based on these requirements, we analyzed the bistatic RCS patterns using electromagnetic simulation, and concluded that the TCR is feasible for bistatic SAR calibration under relatively small bistatic angles (less than 6°). The change of TCR boresight with the bistatic angle is not considered generally. However, we found that the TCR boresight and peak RCS will change with the bistatic angle. We have also proposed that the bistatic angle can be extended to 20° by taking the change of the TCR boresight into account. In this condition, we should get the TCR boresight according to the bistatic angle and then align it during the deployment. Both of these two conditions have their own unique advantages. Different error sources of TCR RCS from manufacture, misalignment, and deformation were investigated quantitatively with simulations, which can provide a theoretical basis for how to design a suitable TCR and guarantee the calibration accuracy for bistatic calibration. In addition, simulation results are different from those of monostatic calibration. Through experiments, we have further verified the feasibility by comparing the quality of bistatic SAR images and point target energy with several typical bistatic angles as the TCR boresight is considered or not. If the bistatic angle is larger than 6°, taking the TCR optimum boresight into account can improve imaging quality and point target energy.