Bistatic inverse synthetic aperture radar imaging

Abstract

The use of a monostatic radar configuration limits the ability of an inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) system to image targets in certain geometries. By employing bistatic geometries this limitation may be overcome. Bistatic radar systems will pay a great role in the coming decade since a large number of radar missions are being foreseen. Using existing transmitters, formations of small passive receivers will enhance capability to gather backscatter information from targets. This paper derives the bistatic ISAR geometries with separated transmitter and receiver. This application capitalizes on the advantages provided by bistatic geometries, such as high imaging rate, good stealth effect, etc. The possibility of obtaining ISAR images using the bistatic radar geometries and the characteristics of bistatic ISAR is theoretically discussed, and then verified using computer simulation results.