Bistatic SAR: theory and simulation

At present, the most used configuration for synthetic aperture radar imaging is the monostatic one (i.e. transmitter and receiver use the same antenna). However, the multiplication of stealth radar targets and the need for more accurate observations imply new radar imaging configurations and processing developments. The bistatic configuration, i.e. operation with separated transmitting and receiving antennas, should overcome the monostatic limitations. The transmitting antenna can also be used in a monostatic configuration, and consequently it is possible to combine monostatic and bistatic data. Bistatic data acquisition provides additional qualitative and quantitative characteristics of scattering targets. The paper presents bistatic SAR images obtained by bistatic RDA (range Doppler algorithm) processing applied to the polarized electromagnetic field detected by the receiver. The proposed model is qualitatively compared with results already published in the literature (Soumekh, M., 1998; 1999), and quantitatively validated from the analytical resolution equations.