FMCW SAR based on USRP hardware platform

The paper presents a concept of using universal software radio peripheral (USRP) as a hardware platform for frequency modulation continuous wave (FMCW) synthetic aperture radar (SAR). The concept presented has been successfully verified through several measurements in the laboratory, as well as in real scenarios where the USRP-based SAR radar was mounted on a ground moving platform and SAR images of the surrounding area were created. The results obtained show that USRP hardware can be used successfully in low cost SAR projects, as well as a system for testing FMCW analog front ends. Moreover, due to its small size the proposed system can be used as a direct digital synthesizer (DDS) and analog digital converter (ADC) for low cost systems dedicated for small ultralight aircrafts or medium size unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV).