Data processing frame for airborne SAR prototype development

Since 1993 The National Institute of Aerospace Technology (INTA) has been working on the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) program based on airborne SAR prototypes with increasing complexity development. In this frame, flexible data processing tools are needed as ground support, to allow the complete prototypes operation. This paper outlines the data processing framework of Radar laboratory. High level SAR processing environment is described. Different tasks and developments built in SAR data processing are introduced in several tools (data take campaigns design, performance assessment estimation, system configuration, product generation and data analysis). This group of tools performs the data processing core for the INTA SAR prototypes. New processing tools to cover specific needs for the new SAR prototypes developments in this laboratory are also introduced.