Whitewood, Aric Pierre; (2006) Bistatic radar using a spaceborne illuminator. Doctoral thesis , UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

A bistatic radar has a physically separated transmitter and receiver. This research pro gramme investigates a bistatic radar system which uses a spaceborne synthetic aperture radar transmitter on board the European Space Agency's Envisat satellite and a station ary, ground based receiver. The advantages of this variant of the bistatic configuration includes the passive and therefore covert nature of the receiver, its relatively low cost, in addition to the possibility of using a non-cooperative transmitter. The theory behind bistatic SAR systems is covered, including the specific case investi gated. The design, construction and testing of the bistatic receiver, which uses two separate channels, for the direct signal from the satellite (for synchronisation purposes) and the re flected signals from the imaged scene is also described. A SAR processing scheme using an adapted chirp scaling algorithm is presented and demonstrated through simulations to produce focused images for the scenario. The results of several bistatic imaging experiments are analysed through comparisons with theoretical impulse responses, and comparisons with satellite photographs, the corresponding monostatic image produced by Envisat, and the bistatic ambiguity function. It is demonstrated that focused images may be produced with such a system, although the performance achievable is dependent upon the imaging geometry. Different look direc tions of the receiver produce widely differing resolution values. The optimum choice of look direction must be weighed against possible direct signal interference in the reflected signal channel. Other effects, such as azimuth ambiguities caused by the sampling of the mov ing transmitter beam by the pulse repetition frequency may also have an effect, depending upon the combined transmit/receive beam pattern. Aspects of the system that could be investigated in the future are identified, for example the addition of an extra channel to the receiver in order to perform bistatic displaced phase centre antenna or interferometry experiments.

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