Multi-channel airborne radar

This paper examines two applications of a multi-channel airborne radar system, or an array-based synthetic aperture radar (SAR). The first mode involves a stripmap SAR array whose electronically-steered beam patterns are exploited to achieved the azimuth resolution of its single element while maintaining a relatively high radar power; this system has applications in foliage penetrating (FOPEN) SAR. The second array-based SAR utlilizes two or more elements in the along-track domain to detect moving targets. Signal processing issues associated with these two array-based SAR systems are discussed.