Analysis of PRF Jitter in Bistatic SAR

In this paper, Pulse Repetition Frequency (PRF) jitter in bistatic Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) is analyzed. The PRF jitter error in bistatic SAR is presented from a physical point of view and a mathematical model for this error is introduced. It is shown that the PRF jitter error deteriorates the performance of bistatic SAR imaging on azimuth, for it corrupts the phase coherence between echo signals. The limitation of the PRF jitter's Root-Mean-Square (RMS) is deduced under some certain conditions. Finally, using the conversion of PRF jitter and phase noise, proper oscillators could be chosen to satisfy the imaging request.