Effects of Ionospheric Scintillation on P Band Spaceborne SAR
Feng Jian① Zhen Wei-min② Wu Zhen-sen① Liu Dun②
①(School of Physics and Optoel Ectronic Engineering, Xidian University, Xi’an 710071, China) ②(China Research Institute of Radiowave Propagation, Qingdao 266107, China)
The ionospheric scintillation can destroy the coherence of SAR echos, and correspondingly degrade SAR imaging performance. The previous studies are conducted under the hypothesis of the given ionospheric electron density irregularities, which are unavailable with the current measurement technologies. In this paper, the characteristics of ionospheric scintillations at low latitudes are analysed by using the observational data of Ultra High Frequency (UHF) band scintillations in the years of high and moderate solar activity at Haikou station. Based on the phase screen theory, a method is proposed to quantify the effects of ionospheric scintillation on P-band spaceborne SAR by using the scintillation index. The results show that the scintillations occur mostly at the night time at low latitudes, especially in equinoxes. The scintillations occur approximately 3.8% during a typical year of high solar activity. For P band SAR, the weak scintillation widens the mainlobe of azimuthal Impulse Response Function (IRF), increases the intensity of sidelobe, and reduces the azimuthal resolution. The moderate scintillation disturbs the IRF seriously, increases the intensity of sidelobe to the degree of mainlobe, and makes the peak of mainlobe shift in azimuthal direction, which can result in the disability of SAR imaging.
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