New sector imaging radar for enhanced vision: SIREV

Recently the demand to supplement existing airborne radar systems with enhanced forward-looking abilities has increased considerably. Available radar systems are not able to fulfill the needed requirements. Here a new approach is been proposed to cover the forward lying sector with respect to the flight path. The new radar system has been denoted as SIREV (Sector Imaging Radar for Enhanced Vision) and is presently under development at DLR. Due to the all-weather capability of the system and its ability to produce high quality radar images either as top view (mapping mode) or as pilot view (central perspective mode) the system is especially qualified for navigation support, autonomous landing approaches or taxi support on the ground. In this paper the authors will especially investigate the azimuth properties of the new system. Azimuth bandwidth and resolution will be calculated and discussed as functions of an arbitrary illuminated sector. Finally a short compilation of the system parameters fixed on basis of these investigations will conclude the description of the new SIREV radar system.