Multichannel Staggered SAR Azimuth Processing

State-of-the-art and future spaceborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) systems increasingly often face the requirement of providing high-resolution images with reduced revisit times, requiring coverage of wide swaths. Since these are contradicting drivers in terms of system design, different alternat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on geoscience and remote sensing 2018-05, Vol.56 (5), p.2772-2788
Main Authors: Queiroz de Almeida, Felipe, Younis, Marwan, Krieger, Gerhard, Moreira, Alberto
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Azimuth
Beamforming
Channels
Digital beamforming (DBF)
Digital imaging
Dimensions
Frequency variation
High resolution
high-resolution wide swath (HRWS)
Image resolution
Imaging techniques
Pulse repetition frequency
radar
Radar imaging
Resolution
SAR (radar)
Spaceborne radar
Spatial resolution
State of the art
Swaths
Synthetic aperture radar
synthetic aperture radar (SAR)
Systems design
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Summary:State-of-the-art and future spaceborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) systems increasingly often face the requirement of providing high-resolution images with reduced revisit times, requiring coverage of wide swaths. Since these are contradicting drivers in terms of system design, different alternatives for high-resolution wide-swath SAR imaging have been investigated, relying on digital beamforming and the use of multiple receiver channels, both in elevation and azimuth dimensions. In this context, staggered SAR, which operates with a pulse repetition frequency (PRF) variation, using a single channel in azimuth proves itself as a promising alternative for covering wide continuous swaths with moderate azimuth resolution, whereas the use of multiple azimuth receiver channels bears the potential of improving the azimuth resolution over a given swath, but has yet only been applied to systems with a fixed PRF. This paper introduces and analyzes in detail processing techniques suitable for the combination of these techniques, leading to novel multichannel staggered SAR imaging modes with the potential for very fine azimuth resolution over ultra-wide swaths. A system concept with 2-m azimuth resolution over a 400-km swath in quad-pol is provided as an example.
ISSN:0196-2892
1558-0644
DOI:10.1109/TGRS.2017.2783444