Multi-Swath SAR Imaging with the f-STEC Mode

Abstract

A consistent trend in Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) is towards a larger swath width and higher resolution, both parameters usually contradicting each other. While there are many imaging techniques that can increase swath width, they usually trade it for the resolution. This paper presents a new method, utilizing the Frequency Scan for Time-of-Echo Compression (f-STEC) imaging mode, that increases the total swath width by imaging the scene with multiple beams on transmit and receive, where all sub-swaths take advantage of the full system bandwidth, i.e., resolution. True to the principle of f-STEC, the beamforming is completely analog and can be realized with a simple antenna front end design.