Staggered-SAR: A New Concept for High-Resolution Wide-Swath Imaging

Abstract

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is the ideal sensor for the systematic observation of dynamic processes on the Earth’s surface. However, current SAR systems are limited, in that a wider coverage can only be achieved at the expense of a degraded azimuth resolution. To overcome this limitation, an innovative concept is considered, Staggered-SAR, where the pulse repetition frequency is continuously varied and high-resolution wide-swath (HRWS) imaging is achieved with a single azimuth channel system. The system design, the processing required to reconstruct the non-uniformly sampled signal, as well as a performance analysis, are considered.