Design and Development of Array POS for Airborne Remote Sensing Motion Compensation

Multi-antenna airborne remote sensing systems have received more attention recently because they can realize high-resolution three-dimensional (3-D) imaging, such as array Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR). Their high-precision imaging needs multi-antenna motion and relative motion between antennas. However, the existing facility and technology hardly meet the motion measurement precision demand of array SAR. To solve this problem, an array Position and Orientation System (POS) for airborne remote sensing motion compensation is designed and developed. It is composed of a high-precision POS, several small-size Inertial Measurement Units (IMU), and a 6-D deformation measurement system based on Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) sensors. Firstly, the transfer alignment method based on 6-D deformation is used to measure the relative motion between array POS. Then, the motion conversion method from array POS to array SAR is presented to obtain the multi-antenna motion and relative motion between antennas. Finally, the ground experiment results identify that the accuracies of multi-antenna position, multi-antenna attitude, and flexible baseline length between antennas are superior to 3 cm, 0.01°, and 0.1 mm, respectively, which can meet the motion measurement precision demand of array SAR.