Research on compensation of motion, Earth curvature and tropospheric delay in GEOSAR

Abstract GEOSAR (synthetic aperture radar on geosynchronous satellite) becomes a potential method of space-borne geoscience remote sensing. Though it has attractive characters such as extra long observing time and very large observing area the unique geometry and relative motion are quite different from straight line required by SAR, and long integration time also causes delay by troposphere and ionosphere. Curvature of the Earth is no long negligible in GEOSAR. Especially, principle of azimuth compression in GEOSAR should be different from that of traditional SAR. In order to fulfill practical GEOSAR such problems should be solved. A new solution of azimuth compression together with motion compensation is presented here by taking the advantages of GEOSAR movement. A new method to overcome the Earth curvature in range compression of EACH footprint is testified. After compensating the Earth curvature traditional methods for range cell migration correction can be used in GEOSAR. Multi-sub-aperture method is applied to eliminate the phase delay caused by troposphere. This modified imaging algorithm makes it possible for GEOSAR to have long integration time and high resolution.