Digital calibration system enabling real-time on-orbit beamforming

Real-time On-orbit digital beamforming, combined with lightweight, large aperture reflectors, enable SweepSAR architectures, which promise significant increases in instrument capability for solid earth and biomass remote sensing. These new instrument concepts require new methods for calibrating the multiple channels, which are combined on-board, in real-time. The benefit of this effort is that it enables a new class of lightweight radar architecture, Digital Beamforming with SweepSAR, providing significantly larger swath coverage than conventional SAR architectures for reduced mass and cost. In this paper we will present the current development of the digital calibration architecture for digital beamforming radar instruments, such as the proposed D-SAR instrument. This proposed instrument´s baseline design employs SweepSAR digital beamforming, requiring digital calibration. We will review the overall concepts and status of the system architecture, algorithm development, and the digital calibration testbed currently being developed. We will present results from a preliminary hardware demonstration. We will also discuss the challenges and opportunities specific to this novel architecture.