L-Band SAR-processor for the Chinese SAR satellite

The SAR processor was developed for fast delivery of high-resolution images from the Chinese CRS-1 satellite based on Pentium IV technology. Through testing, all the following requirements were met at an acceptable hardware and software cost: fast delivery time; high resolution; high precision. The development of the SAR processor was a joint project between BRSI (Beijing Remote Sensing Institute), China, and RST (Radar Systemtechnik AG), Switzerland. The paper contains an overview of the architecture used by the SAR processor. Due to the complexity of the SCAN-SAR algorithm, it is described in detail. In strip mode, the standard range of the Doppler algorithm was optimised to meet the SCAN-SAR requirements. The results using a simulated point target are given.