Tropospheric effects on L-band geosynchronous circular SAR imaging

Circular synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging on the geosynchronous orbit has significant potential advantages, such as high resolution three-dimensional imaging, large coverage, but it also has challenges to overcome. One major problem limiting the high-resolution geosynchronous circular SAR (GEOCSAR) performances is the atmospheric effects including the tropospheric and ionospheric effects. In this study, the authors mainly consider the tropospheric effects on L-band GEOCSAR imaging. Since the integration time of GEOCSAR may be as long as 24 h, and the coverage can reach 1/3 of the Earth´s surface, the effects of the spatial and temporal variation of the tropospheric refractive index cannot be ignored if well focused images are to be obtained. The analysis shows that the temporal variation of the tropospheric refractive index may cause severe degradation of the SAR images; the spatial variation of the refractive index and the tropospheric turbulence are not the important factor limiting the GEOCSAR imaging performance.