The overview of the L-band SAR onboard ALOS-2

Advanced Land Observing Satellite-2 (ALOS-2) is the post-ALOS mission. The L-band SAR onboard ALOS-2 has higher resolution, lower noise equivalent sigma zero (NESZ), and higher signal to ambiguity ratio (S/A) than PALSAR in order to meet the requirements for land and disaster monitoring. To realize these requirements. the new technologies have been adopted: the maximum bandwidth allocation for L-band SAR and the spotlight mode with active phased array antenna (APAA) for high resolution, the development of high power and efficient device for high NESZ, and chirp modulation technique for high S/A. In addition, very accurate orbit control (orbital tube < 500m) and short repeat-pass orbit (14 days) achieve the higher coherence of INSAR both between stripmap modes and between ScanSAR modes. This paper introduces the overview of the L-band SAR onboard ALOS-2 as the post-ALOS mission.