Modelling RADARSAT-2 doppler centroids for marine applications / by Chuck Livingstone and Pierre Beaulne.: D68-6/097-2012E-PDF

The Doppler centroid of acquired SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) and SAR-GMTI (Ground Moving Target Indication) signal data is required to refine theoretically-defined processing filters for SAR processing of stationary terrain and to minimize GMTI artefacts for moving targets. When precision orbit and attitude data are used in conjunction with an ellipsoidal earth model, SAR processing filters can be adjusted for the observation geometry to generate SAR imagery that is acceptable for most applications. Residual earth rotation artefacts in this imagery have no significant impact on its use. The residual earth rotation effects after matched filter compensation are significant for GMTI measurements. For land scenes, the background terrain can be assumed to be static and radar returns from scene elements that do not contain moving targets can be used to provide the required reference. On the sea surface, the background terrain is moving and radar returns are often too weak to capture reliable Doppler centroid information from the acquired signal data. Although RADARSAT-2 has been designed to minimize earth rotation Doppler shifts by controlling the satellite attitude over the orbit to point the satellite beam near the zero Doppler azimuth angle, the attitude control law that is implemented in the satellite uses satellite position information and does not account for orbit and earth ellipticity or radar range.

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