Digital signal processing applications in high-performance synthetic aperture radar processing

Modern high-performance synthetic aperture radar (SAR) systems require sophisticated signal processing to form high-quality image products. The advent of high-speed analog to digital converter (ADC), digital to analog converter (DAC), and field programmable gate array (FPGA) technology has transformed radar architectures and moved the analog/digital boundary substantially closer to the antenna, while improving both system flexibility and performance. This paper discusses the trends in application of digital signal processing (DSP) to modern SAR systems, and specifically to Sandia National Laboratories´ MiniSAR program.