Synthetic aperture radar for all weather penetrating UAV application (SARape) - project presentation

The capability to image scenes from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) even through bad weather conditions or dust clouds is an important requirement for state-of-the-art synthetic aperture radar (SAR). Therefore, systems have to be of small size and low weight to fit in small aircrafts. High spatial resolution and online SAR-processing are also indispensable for the operational radar. These needs make great demands on hardware and signal processing. Especially, the fast preprocessing and data link to the ground, as well as the real-time SAR-processing algorithms are challenging tasks. The latter have to cope with the unstable flight conditions of small UAVs. The SARape-project (Synthetic Aperture Radar for all weather penetrating UAV application) aims to develop a sophisticated SAR-system fulfilling the high requirements of modern military and civilian applications. In this paper we present the new 94 GHz system developed in a cooperation of five consortium partners from four European countries.