Analysis of a Novel Spin Platform Height Measurement Method Based on 3D SAR Imaging

In the field of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging, imaging platform is usually in a linear motion; SAR imaging and platform's height measurement are separated. However, the real platforms, such as spin platform, are in complex movement. For these problems, imaging feasibility of a novel spin platform 3D SAR imaging is researched and this imaging result is used to measure platform's height. Firstly, the antenna phase center's trajectory is equal to the planar array antenna. Since using this equivalence to establish a new 3D imaging model, not only the distortion due to platform spin is overcome, but also ground shadow problem of 2D SAR is solved. Furthermore, the center of scene's elevation can be used to measure platform's height, this is a new idea for platform's height measurement. In this paper, the ambiguous function is deduced to prove the imaging feasibility of this model. The results of simulation validate the effectiveness of the proposed method.