Passive multistatic SAR with GNSS transmitters and using joint bi/multi-static CLEAN technique

Abstract

This paper explores the capability of GNSS as opportunity transmitters for passive multistatic SAR. The large number of navigation satellites illuminating the same area from multiple view angles enables a single ground-based stationary receiver to combine the individual bistatic images thus achieving multistatic imagery capability with improved spatial resolution. Nevertheless, such a technique introduces artifacts corrupting the quality of the image information space. In this paper, a joint bi/multi-static CLEAN algorithm is exploited in order to correctly recovering the information of the scene. An experimental study is therefore presented, demonstrating the potential of this technology to extract detailed information of an area for persistent monitoring purposes.