Simulation and Analysis of the Impacts of Anisotropic Ionospheric Scintallition on Geosynchronous Synthetic Aperture Radar

The impacts of ionospheric scintillation on geosynchronous synthetic aperture radar (GEO SAR) focusing is studied based on the multiple phase screen (MPS) theory. The power spectrum density of electron irregularities is first modified according to the ionospheric anisotropy. Then propagation wave equations in random medium are deduced in the case of oblique incidence in GEO SAR. The amplitude and phase errors induced by the random electron fluctuations are generated by the iterated MPS simulations and are superimposed into the GEO SAR signals. Through the following imaging and evaluation, the effects of the anisotropic ionospheric scintallition on GEO SAR are assessed. At last, the optimized integration time under different ionospheric scintillation conditions are recommended through Monte Carlo experiments. It is concluded that, greater ionospheric fluctuations and longer integration time will result in more severe deterioration, even no focus at all in the worst case.