Flexible End-to-End System Design for Synthetic Aperture Radar Applications

摘要

This paper presents ARTEMIS, Inc.'s approach to development of end-to-end synthetic aperture radar systems for multiple applications and platforms. The flexible design of the radar and the image processing tools facilitates their inclusion in a variety of application-specific end-to-end systems. Any given application comes with certain requirements that must be met in order to achieve success. A concept of operation is defined which states how the technology is used to meet the requirements of the application. This drives the design decisions. Key to adapting our system to multiple applications is the flexible SlimSAR radar system, which is programmable on-the-fly to meet the imaging requirements of a wide range of altitudes, swath-widths, and platform velocities. The processing software can be used for real-time imagery production or post-flight processing. The ground station is adaptable, and the radar controls can be run by an operator on the ground, on-board the aircraft, or even automated as part of the aircraft autopilot controls. System integration takes the whole operation into account, seeking to flawlessly work with data links and on-board data storage, aircraft and payload control systems, mission planning, and image processing and exploitation. Examples of applications are presented including using a small unmanned aircraft at low altitude with a line of sight data link, a long-endurance UAV maritime surveillance mission with on-board processing, and a manned ground moving target indicator application with the radar using multiple receive channels.