Ionospheric Influence on Height Measurement Accuracy in Two-Pass Ground Survey Using P-Band Bistatic Radar System

In this letter, a theoretical study of the ionospheric influence on the accuracy of measuring the terrain height using a bistatic interferometer composed of a P-band synthetic aperture space radar and a ground receiver was carried out. A method for calculating the height measurement error that takes into account the interferometer geometry, the influence of the ionosphere parameters, additive noise, and spatial decorrelation of radar images is presented. The numerical dependences are obtained that allow estimating the optimal range of the interferometric base values and the height measurement error for point and extended targets.