Enhancement on spotlight COSMO-SkyMed SAR products

COSMO-SkyMed (CSK) satellites are providing images with a resolution in the meter regime using the sliding spotlight mode (SL). This is an imaging mode which can obtain better azimuth resolution at the expense of azimuth imaged area than stripmap mode .Spotlight SAR data processing is already an established topic; efficient and accurate solutions in frequency domain have been proposed over the last years. However, the assumptions of these algorithms start to be invalid when applied to high-resolution spotlight SAR data acquired in spaceborne low Earth orbit (LEO) configurations. The assumption of a hyperbolic range history is no longer accurate for sub-metric spatial resolutions due to the satellite curved orbit. Since velocity of a space-borne platform is quite uniform, a simple focusing scheme had been designed in order to handle no straight line trajectory, using both approximated and accurate ω-k focusing kernel. Moreover, when getting close to decimeter resolution (at X-band) other several effects appear; in particular the motion of the satellite during the transmission and reception of the chirp signal deteriorate the impulse response function (IRF), if not properly considered (so called stop-and-go approximation). This paper shows that also CSK SL SAR data, with a resolution close to 1 meter, are not immune to disturbance effects when the stop-and-go approximation is assumed. The ω-k algorithm with satellite curved orbit handling is used to focus CSK spotlight data, and the stop-and-go approximation correction is included in the data processing chain. Experimental results with CSK spotlight data are provided to show quality enhancement on SAR standard focused products.