Computerized ionospheric tomography based on geosynchronous SAR: Theory, advantages and feasibility study

Computerized Ionospheric Tomography (CIT) is a power tool for investigating the ionospheric electron density in three-dimensional space, and has important implications for weather forecast and scientific research. The existing researches on CIT are mostly based on the GPS data, which have disadvantages of complex operation, bad environment adaptability, small covering area and so on. The researches on CIT based on space-borne SAR are still at primarily stage and the relevant research methods are based on the low earth orbit SAR (LEO SAR) data, which have disadvantages of real-time performance and small covering area. This paper proposes a CIT technique based on geosynchronous SAR (GEO SAR), which may well solve the problems in the existing CIT techniques. In this paper, firstly, the advantages of CIT based on GEO SAR are analyzed. Then, the geometry and implementation process of CIT technique based on GEO SAR are given. Moreover, a GEO SAR satellite formation design is proposed in order to achieve better CIT performance. Finally, the simulation results of CIT based on GEO SAR using the International Reference Ionosphere (IRI) data are shown, verifying the theoretical analysis.