Optical counterpart of SAR system and its applications

摘要

This paper proposed a new concept of optical counterpart of radar system. Due to the difference between wavelength of microwave and light, we can build an optical counterpart of a radar system in reduced dimensions with optical components and light in place of microwave. The radar system is equivalent to its optical counterpart in physical principle. As for a C-band radar system, the wavelength is 5cm typically and 5 orders longer than 500nm green light. A scene of 10km for the C-band radar will be scaled to 0.1m for its optical counterpart. The optical counterpart of a radar system can simulate the backscattered signal in light-wave domain at a speed of light. Taking the advantage of reversibility of optical path, the optical counterpart can also be used to process the radar data and reconstruct the scene or target in spite of complex algorithms as long as the physical equivalence is kept well.