E-SAR Upgrade to Stepped-Frequency Mode: System Description and Data Processing Approach
Conference: EUSAR 2006 - 6th European Conference on Synthetic Aperture Radar
05/16/2006 - 05/18/2006 at Dresden, Germany
Proceedings: EUSAR 2006
Pages: 4Language: englishTyp: PDF
Personal VDE Members are entitled to a 10% discount on this title
Authors:
Scheiber, Rolf; Barbosa, Felipe; Nottensteiner, Anton; Horn, Ralf (Microwaves and Radar Institute, German Aerospace Center (DLR), Germany)
Abstract:
A common way to enhance the range resolution of imaging radars is to adopt stepped frequency waveforms. This paper discusses in detail stepped-frequency processing possibilities on raw and processed data level, focussing on the compensation steps required to obtain high quality results. At the same time, software changes to an established SAR processor are kept at a minimum. The paper starts with a description of associated hardware extensions performed to the front-end of the E-SAR system of DLR to accommodate the stepped frequency mode in X-band. Two alternating channels, each of 100 MHz bandwidth have been implemented, which lead to a best case range resolution of 80cm corresponding to an improvement of up to 80% compared to the standard imaging mode. The performance of the complete system (including hardware and processing concept) is investigated using real data acquired with different spectral overlap between the sub-bands.