Performance analysis of airborne TOPS mode

Abstract

TOPS (Terrain Observation by Progressive Scans) mode allows a compromise between azimuth resolution and azimuthal scene coverage by beam-scan and the selection of azimuth resolution, azimuthal scene coverage, working period (time during which a complete beam-scan is obtained), maximum scanning angle and PRF is a systematic problem for airborne TOPS mode application. Focusing on this issue, this paper proposes an analysis method that helps decide the aforementioned parameters. The proposed method treats the issue as an optimization problem, i.e., given working period; search the maximum scanning angle and azimuth resolution that satisfy the working period, the search results are data pairs that could be used as options to calculate the scene Doppler bandwidth and azimuthal coverage.