IFSAR: an airborne interferometric SAR simulator

The IFSAR is an airborne SAR simulator for extended targets developed by INTA. This tool generates simulated signal data of an artificial three-dimensional scene as collected by an interferometric SAR with a fully configurable system oriented to airborne applications. Scene is made of points and triangular extended targets, over a selected ellipsoid, and it can be drawn using common CAD software. GPS motion records of plane and moving point targets, extended targets, associated scattering patterns, chirp signal, antenna patterns and TxRx diagram can be simulated too. Experimental results comparing interferograms from real and simulated missions shows that the tool is extremely accurate and requires few computer resources. It is used to calibrate of MOCO algorithms and interferometric processors, to probe new techniques and solve problems in real acquisitions of interferometric airborne SAR data.