Aperture synthesis techniques for ground based and spaceborne weather radars

Electronic beam steering is the usually preferred option for imaging when available scan time is short. An alternative possibility is the use of a correlating interferometer to synthesise an aperture which collects backscattered radiation resulting from simultaneous illumination of an entire scene or raster. Potential benefits include the fact that the receive antenna need not be filled, and that image synthesis may be undertaken independently of data collection. Much higher flexibility follows, with a number of design tradeoffs being possible