A Rise-Dimensional Modeling and Estimation Method for Flight Trajectory Error in Bistatic Forward-Looking SAR

Bistatic forward-looking synthetic aperture radar (BFSAR) is a kind of bistatic SAR system that can image forward-looking terrain in the flight direction of a moving platform. In BFSAR, compensation of the flight trajectory errors is of great significance to get a well-focused image. To accomplish an accurate motion compensation in image processing, a high-precision navigation system is needed. However, in many cases, due to the accuracy limit of such systems, flight trajectory errors are hard to be compensated correctly, causing mainly the resolution decrease in final images. In order to cope with such a problem, we propose a rise-dimensional modeling and estimation for flight trajectory error based on raw BFSAR data in this paper. To apply this method, we first carry out a preprocessing named azimuth-slowtime decoupling to deal with the spatially variant flight trajectory error before estimation. Then, an optimization model for flight trajectory estimation under the criterion of maximum image intensity is built. The solution to the optimization model is the accurate flight trajectory. Then, block coordinate descent technique is used to solve this optimization model. The processing of BFSAR data shows that the algorithm can obtain a more accurate estimation results, and generate better focused images compared with the existing trajectory estimation method.