State Representation of Eccentricity-Limited Targets for Bistatic Space Surveillance Radar Design

Knowing the parameter space of target dynamics helps designing and controlling a radar. For spaceborne targets, several state representations exist, each useful for different purposes. We present a method for determining the velocity of a resident space object at a given angle and range towards the observing radar receiver from its orbital parameters of eccentricity, longitude of ascending node and argument of periapsis. This enables the definition of a target state at a fixed position while preserving a dependency on the target's orbital eccentricity. From that the maximum duration of the Coherent Processing Interval (CPI) for a bistatic radar is computed for all targets at a fixed angle towards the receiver with eccentricities below a given limit. This allows to analyse if additional signal processing for focussing the target echo on a resolution cell is necessary.