Synthetic-Aperture-Radar Imaging with a Solid-State Laser

摘要

We report the operation of an imaging Nd:YAG microchip laser synthetic apertureradar, with which we imaged two dimensional (2-D) models of military targets. The images obtained showed spatial resolution significantly better than the diffraction limit of the real aperture in the along-track dimension. The signal processing is described, and the measurement sensitivity is both predicted and verified. In addition, 2-D images with high resolution in both dimensions were generated by using an asymmetric aperture to match the along-track synthetic aperture resolution with the across-track diffraction limited resolution.