First Polish SAR trials

Recent research on synthetic aperture radars (SARs) in Poland is presented. The research started in 2002 and resulted in the first focused SAR image being obtained in the following year. The Telecommunication Research Institute and the Warsaw University of Technology have carried out the trials in order to work out efficient algorithms for radar imaging in different radar modes. The experiment consisted of two main stages. During the first stage, different SAR algorithms were tested using simulated data generated by a raw radar data simulator. During the second stage, real-life data were collected during the flight of an aircraft using a modified non-coherent radar. The collected data were processed offline. During the experiment, three techniques were tested: Doppler beam sharpening, unfocused SAR and focused SAR. The experiment was accomplished successfully and the obtained results allowed the start of research into the real-time implementation of imaging algorithms.