System considerations for active SAR antennae

摘要

A proposed baseline space-borne Advanced SAR active array concept is a dual-frequency (L and C bands), dual polarization, planar array, with 1920 C-Band T/R modules and 240 L-Band T/R modules, distributed behind the radiating aperture. It comprises five panels, each one approximately 4m in elevation by 3.2m in azimuth, for a total antenna aperture size of 4m × 16.0m. Each panel is subdivided into 8 tiles, distributed 4 in elevation by 2 in azimuth. Each tile is thus approximately 1m × 1.6m. The mass of this design is estimated at close to 1700kg, which is almost twice the corresponding Radarsat mass. This paper looks into a possible reformulation of the system level requirements which greatly simplifies the antenna design, thus decreasing mass and cost.