Design of f-SCAN Acquisition Mode for Synthetic Aperture Radar

This paper presents the design and processing of the SAR acquisition technique named frequency scanning (f-SCAN), aimed to obtain high sensitivity to targets with low backscattering and to improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in wide-swath systems. The f-SCAN is an interesting alternative to the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Remote sensing (Basel, Switzerland) Switzerland), 2022-10, Vol.14 (20), p.5283
Main Authors: Guccione, Pietro, Mapelli, Daniele, Giudici, Davide, Persico, Adriano Rosario
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Algorithms
Antennas
Backscattering
Bandwidths
Beamforming
Delay lines
Design
digital beamforming
Digitization
frequency dispersion
Frequency scanning
high-resolution wide swath
Impulse response
Parameters
Pencil beams
Phase shifters
Remote sensing
Response functions
Scanning
Sidelobe reduction
Sidelobes
Signal to noise ratio
Synthetic aperture radar
Time lag
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Summary:This paper presents the design and processing of the SAR acquisition technique named frequency scanning (f-SCAN), aimed to obtain high sensitivity to targets with low backscattering and to improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in wide-swath systems. The f-SCAN is an interesting alternative to the scanning on receive method (SCORE), which needs multiple phase centres achieved using the digital beam forming (DBF) technique. f-SCAN requires less hardware complexity than SCORE; at the same time, it improves the sidelobes and ambiguities’ suppression. The elements used in f-SCAN to generate the pencil beam are the true time delay lines (TTDLs) and the phase shifters (PSs). The general methodology to design an f-SCAN spaceborne SAR high-resolution wide-swath (HRWS) system is introduced; emphasis is put on the mathematical definition of the timing parameters and on a novel method of using TTDLs to achieve the full spanning of wide swaths. The processing of f-SCAN data is also considered: we introduce a novel algorithm to limit the data volume and to guarantee an almost invariant slant range impulse response function (IRF) by removing spectral distortions. Eventually, new definitions, specific for f-SCAN, of the well-known SAR performance parameters, are provided. Simulation results and performances are presented. The advantages and disadvantages with respect to SCORE are discussed using the design of a real case system.
ISSN:2072-4292
2072-4292
DOI:10.3390/rs14205283