Advanced SAR Simulator with multi-beam interferometric capabilities

摘要

State of the art simulations are of great interest when designing a new instrument, studying the imaging mechanisms due to a given scenario or for inversion algorithm design as they allow to analyze and understand the effects of different instrument configurations and targets compositions. In the framework of the studies about a new instruments devoted to the estimation of the ocean surface movements using Synthetic Aperture Radar along-track interferometry (SAR-ATI) an End-to-End simulator has been developed. The simulator, built in a high modular way to allow easy integration of different processing-features, deals with all the basic operations involved in an end to end scenario. This includes the computation of the position and velocity of the platform (airborne/spaceborne) and the geometric parameters defining the SAR scene, the surface definition, the backscattering computation, the atmospheric attenuation, the instrument configuration, and the simulation of the transmission/reception chains and the raw data. In addition, the simulator provides a inSAR processing suit and a sea surface movement retrieval module. Up to four beams (each one composed by a monostatic and a bistatic channel) can be activated. Each channel provides raw data and SLC images with the possibility of choosing between Strip-map and Scansar modes. Moreover, the software offers the possibility of radiometric sensitivity analysis and error analysis due atmospheric disturbances, instrument-noise, interferogram phase-noise, platform velocity and attitude variations. In this paper, the architecture and the capabilities of this simulator will be presented. Meaningful simulation examples will be shown.