Usually, the rational polynomial coefficient (RPC) model of spaceborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is fitted by the original range Doppler (RD) model. However, the radar signal is affected by two-way atmospheric delay, which causes measurement error in the slant range term of the RD model. In this paper, two atmospheric delay correction methods are proposed for use in terrain-independent RPC fitting: single-scene SAR imaging with a unique atmospheric delay correction parameter (plan 1) and single-scene SAR imaging with spatially varying atmospheric delay correction parameters (plan 2). The feasibility of the two methods was verified by conducting fitting experiments and geometric positioning accuracy verification of the RPC model. The experiments for the GF-3 satellite were performed by using global meteorological data, a global digital elevation model, and ground control data from several regions in China. The experimental results show that it is feasible to use plan 1 or plan 2 to correct the atmospheric delay error, no matter whether in plain, mountainous, or plateau areas. Moreover, the geometric positioning accuracy of the RPC model after correcting the atmospheric delay was improved to better than 3 m. This is of great significance for the efficient and high-precision geometric processing of spaceborne SAR images.
Keywords: GF-3 satellite; atmospheric propagation delay correction; fitting accuracy; geometric positioning accuracy; ground control point; range Doppler model; rational polynomial coefficient; synthetic aperture radar.