Multiplicative noise analysis of the FMCW SAR

The frequency modulated continuous wave synthetic aperture radar (FMCW SAR) has become popular in the application of the remote sensing, geosciences, surveillance and reconnaissance due to its small size, low cost and high resolution of imagery. There is thus a growing interest in the methods of assessing its performance. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the performance of an FMCW SAR in terms of the multiplicative noise level. First, the quantitative analysis of the noise level is carried out, and the conclusion is that all the noise components are sufficiently small to have limited or marginal influence on the image quality. Finally, the values of the noise components are tested using the imaging data from a Ku-band FMCW SAR system. The results show that the measured noise level coincides with the value of the quantitative analysis.