Attitude measurement errors in bistatic SAR

Spatial synchronization and its importance in the imaging performance of bistatic synthetic aperture radar (SAR) systems has been explored in several recent studies. In this paper, attitude measurement errors (AME) are studied in the context of motion measurement errors (MME) since the transmitting and receiving antennas are attached to rigid bodies that undergo both translational and rotational motion. As long as the antenna phase center (APC) is not colocated with the body's center of mass or along the axis of rotation, AMEs induce APC position errors and subsequently phase errors. The primary parameters that determine the magnitude and impact of these phase errors on imaging performance are the radar carrier frequency, imaging duration, types of AMEs, and antenna configuration. As such, certain system parameters and antenna configurations minimize the resultant phase errors from AMEs.