Simulation Tool for SAR Missions

Abstract:
For analysing and increasing the efficiency of existing and future Earth observation and reconnaissance systems tools are necessary for the simulation of the end-to-end system chain. Major parts of the tool described here are the mission and the SAR image simulator, which can, with respect to given constraints (i.e. user requests), plan and analyse the necessary mission, e.g., calculate geographical or time depending coverage of regions of interest and optimize the mission and the image quality. Within different projects such a simulator was developed on a modular basis and allows a wide variety of scenarios and platforms like cars, trucks, manned and unmanned planes, ships, and spacecrafts. The four main modules of the mission simulator which will be described in this paper are the mission analyzer, the mission planner, the satellite simulator, the coverage tool and commercial orbit propagators.