Analysis of the impacts of ionospheric scintillation on geosynchronous SAR based on spherical wave correction

Abstract

In this paper, geosynchronous synthetic aperture radar (GEO SAR) signal influenced by iononspheric scintillation is modeled and analyzed quantitatively based on spherical-wave corrected phase screen simulation. Firstly, the signal traversing and propagting within ionospheric scintillation are modeled and the influences are deduced for point target and area target based on plane wave correction. We find that these models are only suitable for small scene and will surely induce errors in case of larger scenes, especially for GEO SAR. Secondly, the influenced GEO SAR signal model is modified based on the spherical wave corrected phase screen. The impacts of different propagation distance are analyzed. Finally, simulation of area target in large scale is realized based on the proposed method.