Geosynchronous SAR Focusing With Atmospheric Phase Screen Retrieval and Compensation

In this paper, a geosynchronous synthetic aperture radar (SAR) (GEOSAR) mission for atmospheric phase screen (APS) retrieval using a long coherent integration of pulses is analyzed. The nearly fixed position of the geosynchronous platforms makes GEOSAR systems suitable for continuous monitoring applications. However, using moderate transmitted powers and antenna sizes, very long integration times up to hours are required. In GEOSAR, the two-way propagation of radar signals can decorrelate significantly due to atmospheric changes during the long data take, resulting in an APS which can cause image defocusing and artifacts. In this paper, the APS effects are analyzed, and an APS correction algorithm from short-term periodic acquisitions (subapertures) of the whole long-term GEOSAR synthetic aperture is described. The results obtained from the APS retrieval algorithm in a simulated GEOSAR acquisition affected by atmospheric decorrelation are presented. Finally, an experimental test of the APS algorithm performance with a long-integration ground-based SAR acquisition is shown.