Novel constellation design method for spaceborne/airborne bistatic SAR systems

A constellation design method is developed and applied for bistatic SAR systems relying on satellite transmitters and aerial receivers with both side- and forward-looking antennas for global and continuous coverage. The design challenges related to a ring-slice-shaped coverage area are solved by adequately selecting the number of satellites per plane, while the number of orbital planes covers the whole Earth. Design results are validated by an independent simulation of constellation coverage around any target in time.