Passive multi-static SAR - Experimental results

Abstract

This article experimentally explores the potential of passive multi-static synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging. An experimental campaign was conducted with navigation satellites (e.g. Global Positioning System (GPS)) as transmitters of opportunity. During the experiment, a single receiver recorded satellite signal reflections of a target area from four satellites in its field of view. Based on the total recording time and the number of signals processed, a total of 46 bistatic images were obtained. Subsequently, those bistatic images were non-coherently combined into a single multi-static image. The obtained results show that the multi-static image enhances target area information space and can additionally be used to reveal object geometric features such as edges, shape, and dimensions, which are otherwise difficult to observe in passive SAR with its modest spatial resolution. In addition, information obtained from individual images was combined to understand whether or not different object types can be classified based on variations of their bistatic reflections, with promising first results.