The design of SAR motion compensation systems incorporating strapdown inertial measurement units

Abstract

A discussion is presented of several important areas in the design of synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) motion compensation systems incorporating strapdown inertial measurement units (IMUs) as the motion-sensing system. A brief review of motion compensation for SAR is presented followed by a presentation of the effects of strapdown IMU sensor and system errors on SAR image quality. These errors include the following: gyro and accelerometer scale factor and bias errors, velocity error, and platform tilt, and errors induced by limited inertial sensor bandwidth. The effects of these errors on the SAR image quality are presented in terms of the SAR impulse response. A motion compensation system conceptualization is presented wherein a strapdown IMU is attached to an antenna and transfer-aligns to the aircraft's master navigator.<>