Turbulence effects on high resolution airborne SAR performance

The imaging performance of high resolution airborne SAR system can be affected by the phase errors resulted from random refractivity fluctuations, when there is a turbulent region in the troposphere. We analyze how the tropospheric refractivity fluctuations affect the high resolution airborne SAR performance. A detailed simulation method is presented to estimate the phase errors caused by atmospheric turbulence. Using the Von Karman model to estimate the refractivity fluctuations in a turbulent region, the structure constant model of atmospheric turbulence and the raw data collected by a Ku-band airborne spotlight-mode SAR with 0.1m resolution, we simulate the actual results of effects of atmospheric turbulence on the SAR image focusing.