A TerraSAR-X Experiment for Validation of Nadir Echo Suppression through Waveform Encoding and Dual-Focus Post-Processing

Abstract

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is a powerful remote sensing technique providing high-resolution images of Earth’s sur-face. The pulsed operation of SAR may cause nadir echoes in SAR images which significantly affect the image quality. The selection of pulse repetition frequency (PRF) in the design of conventional spaceborne SAR systems is constrained to avoid the nadir interference. As this leads to the limitation of SAR performances such as the swath width and the ambiguities, a novel concept for nadir echo suppression using waveform encoding and dual-focus post-processing has been proposed to alleviate the constraint in PRF selection. This technique improves the image quality and the flexibility of SAR system design. This work analyses this concept with more realistic simulation and validates it with a TerraSAR-X experiment.