Impact on airborne SAR direct geo-location from platform attitude parameters

Aiming at the direct geo-location application of high-resolution airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images, this paper discussed the theoretical principles and mathematical models for effects on direct geo-location from attitude angles´ errors of flight platform, through the phase errors and image pixels´ geometric distortion, inputting indirectly into the corresponding geo-location model and influencing the final positioning accuracy. And, the relative simulation test and quantitative analysis based on true flight trajectories´ record data have been executed in the last part of it. The result indicated that the final geo-location error of average horizontal positioning is about 0.53 meters, when the pitch and roll attitude angles´ errors are all no more than 0.1 degree. And, it indicates that the measurement errors of no bigger than five thousandth degree will satisfy the accuracy requirement of 1:10000 scale topographical maps, using high-resolution airborne SAR system.