Development and Performance Evaluation of a Ground-Based SAR System.

Abstract

Synthetic aperture radar is a compound technique that has shown an ability to extract geophysical parameters and its usefulness in terrain classification and surface change detection. We developed a ground based SAR system using two-dimensional antenna scanning system, which can reconstruct 3D radar image of radar targets. This system also has a polarimetric function. At first, several simulations have been performed in order to understand the relation between the resolution and the experiment parameters. By comparing the resolutions with each other, the azimuth scanning aperture length for data acquired and the interval of measured points are determined. Based on the simulation result, some experiments have been carried out and results are presented. The performance of the ground-based SAR system has been discussed. Applications include imaging of 3-D targets in 10-20 meters range, and polarimetric feature of a tree is also discussed.