Developments in compact high-performance synthetic aperture radar systems for use on small Unmanned Aircraft

The MicroASAR and SlimSAR are small, low-cost, synthetic aperture radar (SAR) systems that represent a new advancement in high-performance SAR. ARTEMIS, Inc. and Brigham Young University have employed a unique design methodology that exploits previous developments in designing the SlimSAR to be smaller, lighter, and more flexible while consuming less power than typical SAR systems. The C-band MicroASAR uses a linear-frequency-modulated continuous-wave signal to maximize SNR with a low-power transmitter. The MicroASAR was successfully deployed by NASA on a small unmanned aircraft, the Science Instrumentation Environmental Remote Research Aircraft (SIERRA) Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS), in the Arctic to image sea ice. The SlimSAR works at multiple frequency bands including L-band, X-band, and more, with LFM-CW and pulsed versions, demonstrating the utility of a small multi-band SAR.