SARape - synthetic aperture radar for all weather penetrating UAV application

In this paper the SARape system (Synthetic Aperture Radar for all weather penetrating UAV application) is presented. The purpose of the SARape project was to build up expertise in SAR measurements from UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) and to develop a demonstrator which shows the prospects of the device. The main goal was a miniaturized design of the sensor system enabling the implementation into a low payload UAV, with a focus on the availability of a live SAR display on ground. The small-sized 94 GHz radar frontend with an output power of more than 100 mW, a high bandwidth (1 GHz) and an utmost coherence combined with the fast onboard preprocessing, the digital data link and the real-time SAR processing is a novelty on UAVs.