Focusing of Spaceborne Bistatic SAR Data Based on Time-Domain Perturbation

Spacebome bistatic synthetic aperture radar (BiSAR) system with an inclined geosynchronous (GEO) illuminator and a low-earth-orbit (LEO) receiver is capable of providing higher signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), finer resolution and vast area of surveillance. However, spatial-variant characteristics of the echo signal caused by the complex bistatic formation raise technical challenges in data focusing. To address the issue, an improved chirp scaling (CS) algorithm based on time-domain perturbation is proposed. Firstly, the signal model of GEO-LEO bistatic SAR is derived based on the geometry. Then, two-dimension (2-D) perturbation functions are employed to correct the spatial-variant characteristics of the echo signal. Finally, the phase compensation functions are generated to compensate for the residual phase. The proposed algorithm is able to implement wide-swath and high-resolution imaging. Simulation results of point targets show the validity of the presented method.