Theoretical and practical design considerations for a small, multi-band SAR: The SlimSAR

The SlimSAR is a small, low-cost, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) system and represents a new advancement in high-performance SAR. ARTEMIS employed a unique design methodology that exploits previous developments in designing the SlimSAR to be small, light, and flexible while consuming very little power. The system contains an L-Band core and uses block-converters to operate in a number of other bands. It also has the capability to operate in either deramp or direct-sampling mode and can collect data in two polarizations simultaneously. The flexible control software allows us to change the radar parameters in flight. Multi-frequency SAR provides day and night imaging through smoke, dust, rain, and clouds with the advantages of additional capabilities at different frequencies (i.e. dry ground and foliage penetration at low frequencies, and high-resolution change detection at high frequencies).