ABSTRACT
Modern airborne radar systems are designed to perform a large number of functions which range from detection and discrimination of targets to mapping large areas of ground terrain. This mapping can be performed by the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR). SAR systems can produce maps of reflectivity versus range and Doppler. Range resolution is accomplished through range gating. Fine range resolution can be accomplished by using pulse compression techniques. There are two signal processing techniques to sequentially produce a SAR map or image; they are line-by-line processing and Doppler processing. The quality of ground maps generated by SAR is determined by the size of the resolution cell. A resolution cell is specified by range and azimuth resolutions of the system. Other factors affecting the size of the resolution cells are size of the processed map and the amount of signal processing involved; cost consideration; and size of the objects that need to be resolved in the map.
