A Novel Localization Method for Airborne Multistatic SAR Based on Time Difference of Arrival

Airborne multistatic synthetic aperture radar (SAR) shows various advantages such as high flexibility and target observation from different perspectives regarding localization. However, due to the separation of transmitters and receivers, the time-frequency synchronization error is induced and the traditional Range-Doppler (R-D) localization method is unreliable because of challenges in Doppler centroid estimation. Furthermore, there is a position error in the position of the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) as a high-maneuvering platform. This paper proposes a novel localization method for airborne multistatic SAR based on time difference of arrival (TDOA). This method only uses range information extracted from received signals without Doppler centroid estimation for TDOA localization equation construction. Then the localization equation is solved by the Taylor algorithm for the target location, which is of good robustness to the time-frequency synchronization error and the UAV position error. Numerical simulations validate the effectiveness of this method.