Analysis of Airborne Synthetic Aperture Ladar Imaging with Platform Vibration

Synthetic aperture ladar (SAL), whose carrier is laser, makes use of synthetic aperture processing to improve the resolution of images. Since the wavelength of the laser is very short, it would be very sensitive for SAL to the vibration of the platform. This paper presents how the vibration from the platform of SAL has effects on the imaging quality of SAL. We take the simple harmonic oscillation for example and present an analytic formula of instantaneous range based on 3-D vibration error model. Then, we conclude that the effect of the vibration in cross-track cannot be ignored and related to the peak acceleration of the vibration, while the effect of the along-track one can be ignored. Finally, simulation results prove the validity of the given conclusion from the analytic formula.