Interrupted SAR waveforms for high interrupt ratios

SAR operations typically require long flight lengths to provide the coherent sequences needed for cross-range imaging. For multi-function radars with SAR modes it is usually necessary to interrupt the SAR data collection sequences to support other essential radar modes. These data interruptions can require interruptions totalling up to 50% of the radar timeline. This paper analyses the simulation of antenna patterns at rates of data interruption, typically with 50% data loss. This paper compares the effects of high data interruption on SAR antenna patterns for both periodic and randomly spaced data interruptions. For spotlight mode SAR, the use of pattern averaging can be used to reduce the pattern sidelobes for the cases of randomly spaced data interruptions.