A Feasible Satellite Attitude Maneuver Strategy for High Resolution Sliding Spotlight SAR

Abstract

For high resolution sliding spotlight SAR (HRSS-SAR) on agile platform, its beam steering can be achieved by satellite attitude maneuver. In designing the satellite attitude, the variation of Doppler centroid and azimuth resolution should be considered, along with the illuminated scene width and shape. We proposed a feasible satellite attitude maneuver strategy for HRSS-SAR. The strategy developed the conventional sliding spotlight SAR geometry with moderate azimuth resolution. This paper conceive that the rotation center HRSS-SAR moves along azimuth time, and that the variation of Doppler center along range direction should be minimized. In the strategy, beam steering is realized by three-axes attitude maneuver, escaping from the scene bending phenomenon by one or two axes maneuver in large squint angle geometry. The effectiveness and feasibility of our strategy is validated by simulation experiments both in Satellite Tool Kit (STK) and MATLAB.