A simulation for spaceborne SAR imagery of a distributed, moving scene

A computer simulation that is designed to represent aspects of spaceborn synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) imagery of the ocean surface is presented. The simulation is unique in that a scatterer density (per resolution cell) is explicitly included, thus allowing the incorporation of various scattering natures, from purely specular to purely diffuse. The simulation may be applied to ocean surface wave imaging, since velocity bunching and scene coherence times are also included. Certain assumptions inherent in the velocity bunching formulation limit the applicability of the simulation in its present form to spaceborn SAR systems only. Two experiments based on this simulation are considered: (1) the effect of varying the target density; and (2) the effect of the mean scene coherence time in the imaging of a ocean swell system