Bistatic forward-looking SAR: Theory and challenges

With appropriate geometry configurations, bistatic synthetic aperture radar (SAR) can break through the limitations of monostatic SAR on forward-looking imaging. Thanks to such a capability, bistatic forward-looking SAR (BFSAR) has extensive potential applications. In this paper, we categorize various airborne and ground based BFSAR and give their possible applications, challenges and processing approaches. After that, based on gradient theory, we analyze the resolution performance of different mode BFSAR and present the intrinsic reasons why BFSAR can carry out forward-looking imaging.