Development of signal processing algorithms for high resolution airborne millimeter wave FMCW SAR

For airborne Earth observation applications, there is a special interest in lightweight, cost effective, imaging sensors of high resolution. The combination of frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) technology and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) techniques can lead to such a sensor. In this paper, a developed algorithm for SAR imaging that takes into account the special characteristics of FMCW signals is presented. Constrains for the validity of the stop and go approximation are shown. A demonstrator system has been built at Delft University of Technology and some results from the last airborne campaign are presented.

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