Sovremennye problemy distantsionnogo zondirovaniya Zemli iz kosmosa, 2010, Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 275-292
Bistatic space sar for ocean phenomena operation monitoring
S.V. Pereslegin
, Z.A. Khalikov
P.P.Shirshov Institute of Oceanology
of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IO RAS), 36, Nahimovski prospect, Moscow, Russia, 117997
Development of space radar for the ocean phenomena operative monitoring supposes the substantial increase of informing
as compared to existent means, and the physical parameters of ocean fields must be measured directly. It
means that the panoramic radar image must represent, for example, meso-scale field of averaged waves height, field
of ocean level variations or field of currents velocity, and exactness of restoration must be equal to the requirements.
To other side, the necessary quickness (required, for example, with produced a tsunami seismic waves) can be attained
with very wide area of review (width of image ~1000 km), that created by few small satellites. Very economical
radar system for ocean phenomena monitoring can be created on the base of two-position principle of sensing,
where radiating and received satellites are on the same height of orbits, difference on the latitude. This enables
to use a quasi-mirror «illumination track». In same queue, high reflecting ability of marine surface allows to set the
interferometer on a receiving satellite with small antenna baseline, for measuring of level and current velocity fields.
In the compressed kind the features of two-position radar are examined in the quasi-mirror mode of sea surface
sensing, including the aperture synthesis, estimations of measuring exactness for small-scale and meso-scale fields
of ocean surface, and necessity of experimental works thats preceding of space development. Citations are given of
Russian and foreign authorities, including authors works. The expected parameters of two-position «marine tandem»
are compared to the parameters of the European space system project «Tandem TERRASAR-X», intended for monitoring
of land objects.
Keywords: large wind waves, seismic waves, current velocity field, ocean level field, quasi-mirror bistatic scattering, bistatic interferometric SAR (BiSAR)
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