Feature-Independent Aperture Evaluator for the Curvilinear SAR

Curvilinear synthetic aperture radar (SAR), as a more practicable 3-D SAR imaging system, utilizes parametric target feature estimates extracted from the received data to reconstruct the target image. The reconstructed image quality is then impacted by the estimation accuracy of the features. In this letter, through discussing the correlation between the system parameters and the estimation performance of the curvilinear SAR, a conclusion can be drawn on how the overall location accuracy of a target is determined by the correlation between the azimuth and elevation coordinates of the flight path, compactly characterizing the curvilinear aperture. Consequently, a new index, determined only with the aperture parameters, is proposed as an aperture evaluator, which is referred to as the feature-independent aperture evaluator (FAE). FAE can be used for guiding the operational aperture design