Bistatic Synthetic Aperture Radar Imaging: Theory, Simulations, and Validations

A three-dimensional "full-polarized" model for arbitrary transmitter, receiver and target motions in bistatic synthetic aperture radar configurations is proposed. Qualitative validation of this model is presented through comparison with existing results and quantitative validation is obtained from proposed general analytical resolution equations. To take into account complex targets, geometric theory of diffraction based models are considered. Some numerical results are proposed in bistatic and monostatic configurations which permit to check the performance of the proposed model and to highlight the interest of the bistatic synthetic aperture radar imaging

I. Introduction

Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imaging has several advantages in comparison with other techniques like, for example, optical imaging since electromagnetic waves are not very sensitive to darkness, clouds, etc. At the present time, the most used configuration is the monostatic one (i.e., transmitter and receiver are the same antenna) which is easily operational due to the fact that it needs only a single platform operating as transmitter and receiver. However, stealth radar targets multiplication and the need for more accurate observations imply new radar imaging configurations and processing developments.