SUMATRA – A UAV based miniaturized SAR System

Abstract:
The capability to image scenes from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) even through bad weather conditions or dust clouds is getting more and more important, especially on small scale. Modern synthetic aperture radar (SAR) systems are capable to provide high resolution images under difficult conditions. Challenging is the integration of a SAR system into small aerial vehicles and to cope with their unstable flight conditions. This paper covers the experimental millimeter wave SAR setup operated onboard an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) as well as using a Pod, which is high flexible and small in size to fit on small manned airplanes. Using a millimeter-wave (mmW) system working at 94 GHz ensures, that the used technique including the antennas can be implemented into small payload bays. Measurements of the used IMU compared to movement estimations using a high resolution experimental radar will be shown as well as radar images.