Ka-Band Instrument for Ground Moving Target Indication with Low PRF Requirement

Kurzfassung

The paper proposes a space-borne radar instrument architecture which supports a joint SAR (synthetic aperture radar) and GMTI (ground moving target indication) imaging mode. In a joint mode, one set of raw radar data is recorded in a single data take, but alternate processing methods are applied to this set on ground in order to obtain two different data products: images of stationary and moving targets, respectively. A Ka-band instrument can be equipped with a receive antenna which is long electrically and which provides many along-track phase centers. It is these features which support a low PRF/ wide swath joint SAR/GMTI imaging mode. A Ka-band instrument architecture is proposed with 13 receive phase centers. The problems arising in this context are recognized and solutions presented at conceptual level, including a potential GMTI processing scheme. Algorithm details as well as alternative processing schemes will be published in forthcoming papers. A wide-swath, joint SAR/GMTI imaging mode is expected to be an attractive feature for future spaceborne missions based on Ka-band instrumentation.