Due to a system-inherent limitation, conventional synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is incapable of imaging a wide swath with high geometric resolution. This restriction can be overcome by systems with multiple receive channels in combination with an additional digital signal processing network. So far, the application of such digital beamforming algorithms for highresolution wide-swath SAR imaging has been restricted to multichannel systems in stripmap operation. However, in stripmap mode, the overall azimuth antenna length restricts the achievable swath width, thus preventing very wide swaths as requested by future SAR missions. Consequently, new concepts for ultrawideswath imaging are needed. A promising candidate is a SAR system with multiple azimuth channels being operated in burst mode. This paper analyzes innovative ScanSAR and Terrain Observation by Progressive Scans (TOPS) system concepts with regard to multichannel azimuth processing. For this, the theoretical analyses, performance figures, and SAR signal processing, which ad previously been derived for multichannel stripmap mode, are extended to systems operating in burst modes. The investigations reveal that multichannel ScanSAR systems enable the imaging of ultrawide swaths with high azimuth resolution and compact antenna lengths. These considerations are embedded in a multichannel ScanSAR system design example to demonstrate its capability to image an ultrawide swath of 400 km with a high geometric resolution of 5 m. In a next step, this system is adapted to TOPS mode operation, including an innovative âÂÂstaircaseâ multichannel processing approach optimized for TOPS.


    Access

    Download


    Export, share and cite



    Title :

    Multichannel Azimuth Processing in ScanSAR and TOPS Mode Operation


    Contributors:

    Published in:

    Publication date :

    2010-07-01



    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    German




    PALSAR SCANSAR SCANSAR Interferometry

    Shimada, M. / European Space Agency | British Library Conference Proceedings | 2009


    Interferometry with TOPS: coregistration and azimuth shifts

    De Zan, Francesco / Prats-Iraola, Pau / Scheiber, Rolf et al. | German Aerospace Center (DLR) | 2014

    Free access



    Interferometric Processing of PALSAR Wide-Beam ScanSAR Data

    Werner, C. / Wegmuller, U. / Frey, O. et al. | British Library Conference Proceedings | 2012