DIGITAL-COMPUTER SIMULATION OF SYNTHETIC APERTURE SYSTEMS AND IMAGES

Digital computer simulation is a powerful tool for the design, the mission planning and the image quality analysis of advanced SAR Systems. <<End-to-end>> simulators describe the whole process of the SAR imaging including the generation of the coherent echoes and their processing and allow, unlike the <<product simultors>>, to evaluate the effects of the various impairments on the final image. The main disadvantage of the <<end-to-end>> approach, as described in this paper, is the heavy computation burden; therefore, a new type of simulator is presented, attempting to reduce the burden but presenting a greater degree of completeness and realism than the SAR product simulators, already existing. An <<end-to-end>> simulator and an <<intermediate>> simulator are described and analyzed, with emphasis on their architecture and performance.