Swathbuckler: Real-Time Wide Swath Synthetic Aperture Radar Image Formation Using Embedded HPC

Author

Linderman, Richard W. ; Corner, Joshua ; Tucker, Scot

Author_Institution

US Air Force Res. Lab., Rome, NY

fYear

2006

fDate

38869

Firstpage

244

Lastpage

251

Abstract

This high performance computing (HPC) system processed real-time X-band radar returns into continuous strip-map, high-resolution (< 1m), wide-swath (37 km) imagery on-board a Convair 580 aircraft. The HPC system cost under S100K. The synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image formation algorithm was optimized to achieve real-time processing 9000 times faster than the original algorithm specification. An information management system allowed real-time off-board exploitation of the on-board multi-terabyte database. Real-time SAR image formation was demonstrated on five flight tests. The completed flights provided 7.3 terabytes of raw and processed imagery

Keywords

radar computing; radar imaging; synthetic aperture radar; Swathbuckler; embedded high performance computing system; information management system; real-time X-band radar; real-time wide swath synthetic aperture radar image formation; Airborne radar; Aircraft; Costs; High performance computing; Image databases; Information management; Radar imaging; Real time systems; Synthetic aperture radar; Testing;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

HPCMP Users Group Conference, 2006

Conference_Location

Denver, CO

Print_ISBN

0-7695-2797-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/HPCMP-UGC.2006.68

Filename

4134061