Design and implementation of a lightweight SAR transceiver subsystem

A lightweight Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) transceiver subsystem is presented in detail. Frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) transmitting and de-chirped receiving mode has been adopted in the system. Direct readout digital waveforms which can acquire the predistortion compensation, analog de-chirp and digital modulation techniques have also been used. The whole system consists of a CW transmitter, a single channel de-chirped receiver and an anti-vibration PLL frequency synthesizer. In addition, to solve the problem of miniaturization and EMC, the anti-vibration PLL synthesis technique has been brought into use. The transceiver system has some advantages of long pulse, low excitation power, broad bandwidth, and low sample rate. Presently, the system has been designed and fabricated, of which the weight is 800g; power consumption is about 40W and corresponding experiments have also been carried out. 0.5×0.5m² of maximum resolution has been obtained with the coverage of 8 km.