Performance, Applications and Technological Issues of next generation Bistatic Synthetic Aperture Radar

Bistatic Synthetic Aperture Radar is defined when antennas for reception and transmission are physically separated. Such a spatial separation allows bistatic SAR to operate in different geometric and functional configurations, thus being able to achieve a vast amount of scientific and practical applications. Even if these applications are known from a long time, nowadays, Bistatic SARs can be only considered experimental systems. No operative missions based on Bistatic SAR have never been realized (the sole exception being TanDEM-X mission, scheduled for launch within 2010, and aiming at realizing a spaceborne bistatic SAR interferometer based on two LEO satellites flying in close formation). This situation has a twofold origin. First bistatic SAR observation involves a series of implementation challenges. Indeed it requires the coordinated use of two systems, with accurate time synchronization and antenna pointing between transmitter and receiver and with accurate antenna separation measurement and control. Then, the study of possible applications was very often conducted with a qualitative approach, in which, besides the basic principle of a given application, rarely quantitative methodologies for performance evaluation were proposed. This thesis, on the basis of ongoing national and international research programs and strategies, selects and analyzes three possible future realizations of bistatic SAR and, for each of them, it individuates some promising applications, develops and settles methods for performance estimation and feasibility analysis, and suggests technological solutions towards their implementation. The proposed tools, although defined for specific realization of bistatic SARs, can be considered of general validity.