High Resolution Wide Swath SAR Imaging with Digital Beamforming - Performance Analysis, Optimization, System Design

Abstract

Multi-aperture synthetic aperture radar (SAR) systems in combination with an appropriate coherent processing of the individual aperture signals enable high resolution wide swath (HRWS) SAR imaging. An innovative reconstruction algorithm for such a digital beamforming on receive was presented that allows for HRWS even in case of a non-uniformly sampled data array in azimuth. This paper will compare this algorithm to different azimuth processing strate­gies regarding their performance in dependency of the overall sampling. Further, the algorithm is characterized theoretically regarding aliasing and residual ambiguities. In this context, optimization strategies are discussed to maximize the system’s performance by pattern tapering on transmit and “Pre-Beamshaping on Receive” networks that adaptively adjust the virtual sample positions.