Conceptual Performance of a Satellite Borne, Wide Swath Synthetic Aperture Radar

A satellite borne synthetic aperture radar can image a wide swath in the order of 700 km with one-look 100-m resolution. If the design meets the ambiguity constraints at the far edge of the swath, the maximum swath width is independent of both radar wavelength and shape of the physical antenna aperture. The antenna pattern can be a pencil beam scanned in the elevation plane, or a fan beam formed by a long antenna. The scanning pencil beam antenna may be a phased array or multiple-feed reflector which may be more practical than a long antenna to image a wide swath. Design performance trade computations are presented involving resolution, swath width, antenna area, average transmitter power and digital data rate.

[1]  L. Dellwig,et al.  The geological value of simultaneously produced like- and cross-polarized radar imagery. , 1966 .

[2]  Louis J. Cutrona,et al.  Comparison of sonar system performance achievable using synthetic‐aperture techniques with the performance achievable by more conventional means , 1975 .

[3]  John Kirk.  A Discussion of Digital Processing in Synthetic Aperture Radar , 1975, IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems.

[4]  Leonard J. Porcello,et al.  Speckle reduction in synthetic-aperture radars , 1976 .

[5]  J. Goodman.  Some fundamental properties of speckle , 1976 .

[6]  Simultaneous Passive And Active Microwave Observations Of Near-Shore Beaufort Sea Ice , 1977 .

[7]  W. J. van de Lindt,et al.  Digital technique for generating synthetic aperture radar images , 1977 .

[8]  K. Tomiyasu,et al.  Synthetic aperture radar in geosynchronous orbit , 1978 .

[9]  K. Tomiyasu,et al.  Tutorial review of synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) with applications to imaging of the ocean surface , 1978, Proceedings of the IEEE.

[10]  L. J. Cutrona.  Means to achieve wide swath widths in synthetic aperture satellite borne radars , 1978 .

[11]  A. Horvath,et al.  DSCS III Communications Satellite Performance , 1978 .

[12]  W. Campbell,et al.  Mapping of sea ice and measurement of its drift using aircraft synthetic aperture radar images , 1979 .

[13]  Synthetic aperture radar with elevation-plane scanned antenna beam for wide swath coverage , 1979 .

[14]  Richard Moore.  Tradeoff between Picture Element Dimensions and Noncoherent Averaging in Side-Looking Airborne Radar , 1979, IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems.

[15]  Ian G. Cumming,et al.  The digital processing of Seasat synthetic aperture radar data , 1980 .

[16]  R. Jordan.  The Seasat-A synthetic aperture radar system , 1980, IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering.

[17]  R. Raney,et al.  SAR response to partially coherent phenomena , 1980 .

[18]  C. Wu,et al.  A digital fast correlation approach to produce SEASAT SAR imagery , 1980 .

[19]  Richard K. Moore,et al.  Scanning Spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radar with Integrated Radiometer , 1981, IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems.