Preliminary Interferometric Performance Estimation for the Interferometric Cartwheel in Combination with ENVISAT ASAR

Abstract

-This paper presents the results of a preliminary interferometric performance estimation for the bistatic Cartwheel/ASAR combination. Several possible Cartwheel/ASAR constellations have been investigated. The required timing strategy for data acquisition without interfering signals is investigated as well as the interferometric baselines resulting for a Cartwheel consisting of three satellites. A varying along-track baseline, resulting from the Cartwheel configuration, is investigated with respect to the resulting shift in the Doppler spectra of the interferometric channels. Finally, several contributions to the overall height error, e.g. ambiguities, SNR or quantization noise, are estimated and a first guess for the achievable interferometric height performance is given.