Effects on Three-Dimensional Geosynchronous Circular SAR Imaging by Orbit Errors

Circular SAR imaging on the geosynchronous orbit is an innovative SAR imaging mode, which can perform high resolution three-dimensional (3D) imaging with continuous observations for a large area. However, for geosynchronous satellites the orbit is severely disturbed by perturbing effects, and the orbit error will be an important factor influencing the SAR imaging on the geosynchronous orbit. In this paper, the effects of the orbit error on performances of 3D geosynchronous circular SAR (GEOCSAR) imaging are analyzed. The error model is firstly made, and then the orbit error propagating into the distance from the radar to the target (range) is derived. Furthermore, the effects of different components of the range error on the quality of focused SAR signals are deduced, based on the 3D GEOCSAR signal model with time-domain correlation algorithm. The analyses and simulations will quantify and verify the required accuracies of GEOCSAR orbit estimation for ensuring the 3D imaging quality.