Basic performance of space-surface bistatic SAR using BeiDou satellites as transmitters of opportunity

The basic performance of space-surface bistatic synthetic aperture radar (SS-BSAR) using BeiDou satellites as transmitters of opportunity is presented. The transmitted signal, the satellite trajectory, and the observation time are analyzed to demonstrate the potential of BeiDou satellites to be used as transmitters of SS-BSAR. When a BeiDou medium earth orbit (MEO) satellite is used, the signal-to-noise ratio and the resolution are examined for different SS-BSAR cases, where the receiver is fixed on the ground or mounted on a moving platform. Since the parameters of the BeiDou geostationary earth orbit (GEO) satellite and the inclined geosynchronous satellite orbit (IGSO) satellite are different from those of the MEO satellite, the peculiarities of SS-BSAR with the GEO or IGSO satellite as transmitter are analyzed and then compared with the case of MEO satellite. In order to show the performance difference of SS-BSAR with BeiDou satellites as transmitters, comparisons with other global navigation satellite system (GNSS) transmitters are also made. The theoretical results show that SS-BSAR using BeiDou satellites as transmitters can achieve different sounding performance and can provide some new potential applications compared to other GNSS transmitters.