Analysis and Simulation on Imaging Performance of Backward and Forward Bistatic Synthetic Aperture Radar

In recent years, bistatic synthetic aperture radar (SAR) technique has attracted considerable and increasing attention. Compared to monostatic SAR for which only the backscattering is measured, bistatic SAR expands the scattering measurements in aspects of angular region and polarization, and greatly enhances the capability of remote sensing over terrain and sea. It has been pointed out in recent theoretical researches that bistatic scattering measured in the forward region is preferable to that measured in the backward region in lines of surface parameters retrieval. In the forward region, both dynamic range and signal sensitivity increase to a great extent. For these reasons, bistatic SAR imaging is desirable. However, because of the separated positions of the transmitter and receiver, the degrees of freedom in the parameter space is increased and the forward bistatic imaging is more complicated than the backward bistatic SAR in the aspects of bistatic range history, Doppler parameter estimation and motion compensation, et, al. In this study, we analyze bistatic SAR in terms of ground range resolution, azimuth resolution, bistatic range history and signal to noise ratio (SNR) in different bistatic configurations. Effects of system motion parameters on bistatic SAR imaging are investigated through analytical modeling and numerical simulations. The results indicate that the range resolution is extremely degraded in some cases in forward bistatic SAR imaging. In addition, due to the different imaging projection rules between backward and forward bistatic SAR, the ghost point is produced in the forward imaging. To avoid the above problems, the forward bistatic imaging geometry must be carefully considered. For a given application requirement with the desired imaging performances, the design of the motion parameters can be considered as a question of solving the nonlinear equation system (NES). Then the improved chaos particle swarm optimization (CPSO) is introduced to solve the NES and obtain the optimal solutions. And the simulated imaging results are used to test and verify the effectiveness of CPSO. The results help to deepen understanding of the constraints and properties of bistatic SAR imaging and provide the reference to the optimal design of the motion parameters for a specific requirement, especially in forward bistatic configurations.