Swathbuckler: wide swath SAR system architecture

Between 2001 and 2005, the Swathbuckler wide-swath SAR real-time image formation multinational project evolved a system architecture to continually process 40 KM strips into high resolution (<1 m) imagery. The rapid advance of COTS memory, I/O, and processor technology drove the supercomputer cost down from over $1 M to under $100 K. This paper discusses the key technology improvements driving the affordable solution. In particular, the 8 gigabytes of memory attached to standard dual Xeon server nodes arranged in a standard cluster greatly simplified the previously daunting task of SAR image formation.