The “Myth” of the minimum SAR antenna area constraint

Author

Freeman, A. ; Johnson, W. T K ; Huneycutt, B. ; Jordan, R. ; Hensley, S. ; Siqueira, P. ; Curlander, J.

Author_Institution

Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Technol., Pasadena, CA, USA

Volume

38

Issue

1

fYear

2000

fDate

1/1/2000 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

320

Lastpage

324

Abstract

A design constraint traceable to the early days of spaceborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is known as the minimum antenna area constraint for SAR. In this paper, it is confirmed that this constraint strictly applies only to the case in which both the best possible resolution and the widest possible swath are the design goals. SAR antennas with area smaller than the constraint allows are shown to be possible, have been used on spaceborne SAR missions in the past, and should permit further, lower-cost SAR missions in the future

Keywords

geophysical equipment; geophysical techniques; radar antennas; radar theory; remote sensing by radar; satellite antennas; spaceborne radar; synthetic aperture radar; terrain mapping; SAR; SAR antenna; design constraint; geophysical measurement technique; land surface; lower-cost mission; minimum SAR antenna area constraint; minimum antenna area constraint; minimum area constraint; radar antenna; radar remote sensing; satellite antenna; spaceborne radar; synthetic aperture radar; terrain mapping; Aperture antennas; Azimuth; Bandwidth; Laboratories; Propulsion; Radar antennas; Receiving antennas; Spaceborne radar; Synthetic aperture radar; Vehicles;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Geoscience and Remote Sensing, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0196-2892

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/36.823926

Filename

823926