The SARTOM Project; Tomography for enhanced target detection for foliage penetrating airborne SAR

Abstract

The SARTOM project addresses a key area of defence interest, namely the detection and identification of targets hidden in foliage. The project has provided a rich source of data obtained from a series of flight trials that were conducted in September 2006 at the test site Dornstetten, west of Munich, Germany. This multi-frequency (X-, C- and L-Band) and fully polarimetric data set is being examined with the use of advanced processing techniques designed to extract the maximum amount of information contained in the data: namely SAR Tomography and the analysis of multi-polarimetric and multi-frequency scattering characteristics of the foliage and target signatures. In supporting work a foliage radar penetration simulation model (PRIS) is being used to assess the detection and classification capabilities of different radar configurations applied to targets beneath foliage. In this paper results are presented derived from the experimental data and from the simulation model.