Generalized approach to resolution analysis in BSAR

Bistatic synthetic aperture radars (BSARs) have been the focus of increasing research activity over the last decade. The generalized ambiguity function (GAF) of bistatic SAR is introduced here. First, the GAF for BSAR is represented in the delay-Doppler domain, and is then expanded to the spatial (coordinates) domain. From the GAF, comprehensive knowledge regarding the resolution of BSAR can be extracted, including the range and azimuth resolutions, as well as the area of a resolution cell of BSAR. These general results are also applied to the performance analysis of several particular BSAR geometries, including the space-surface-BSAR (SS-BSAR) system, to demonstrate the potential ability of this newly introduced system.