Impact of Platform Attitude Disturbances on the 3D Imaging Quality of the UAV ARTINO

Inhalt:
Usual SAR systems are restricted by their side looking geometry, which produces shadows in the scene to be imaged. In contrast to this, the airborne 3D imaging radar ARTINO1 works in a nadir looking geometry and unveils important information in areas which are invisible for side looking SAR systems. The UAV2 ARTINO uses a sophisticated sparse MIMO3 antenna array distributed under the wings. Due to the fixed antenna structure, every small flight disturbance changes the position of every single antenna element and influences the 3D image quality. This paper investigates the impact of pitch-, yaw-, and roll angle variations on the 3D image quality and discusses compensation methods.