Bistatic radar with large baseline for bio-geophysical parameter retrieval

This work aims at defining applications, products and user requirements, as well as the hardware and ground processing design of a companion satellite mission which shall carry aboard a 'passive' radar working in tandem with the Argentinian L-band radar developed by CONAE and denoted as SAOCOM. The primary objective (i.e., science driver) of the SAOCOM companion satellite mission (SAOCOM-CS) is forest tomography, which will be carried out by exploiting small baselines between active and passive systems (order of km) changing with time. Conversely, this paper summarizes the investigation carried out for different bistatic radar configurations that are characterized by much larger spatial baselines (up to hundreds of km) and bistatic angles with very large components both in azimuth and in elevation. Soil moisture and vegetation biomass retrieval takes advantage from the combined exploitation of monostatic and bistatic measurements. The retrieval ambiguity related to target azimuthal anisotropy could also be reduced by bistatic observations, like in the case of the ocean surface. The bistatic system shall collect data with suitable directions and polarizations. The expected performances of a multistatic system have been predicted using electromagnetic models