Sensitivity of BPA SAR Image Formation to Initial Position, Velocity, and Attitude Navigation Errors

TL;DR

This paper analyzes how navigation errors in position, velocity, and attitude affect the quality of BPA SAR images, providing analytical tools to understand and quantify these effects.

Contribution

It develops and verifies analytical expressions linking navigation errors to image formation errors in BPA SAR imaging.

Findings

Analytical expressions accurately predict image errors caused by navigation inaccuracies.

Simulation and real data confirm the validity of the analytical models.

Navigation errors significantly impact image quality, causing shifts and distortions.

Abstract

The Back-Projection Algorithm (BPA) is a time domain matched filtering technique to form synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images. To produce high quality BPA images, precise navigation data for the radar platform must be known. Any error in position, velocity, or attitude results in improperly formed images corrupted by shifting, blurring, and distortion. This paper develops analytical expressions that characterize the relationship between navigation errors and image formation errors. These analytical expressions are verified via simulated image formation and real data image formation.