Remote sensing of land and water with an airborne 94-GHZ synthetic aperture radar

For certain remote sensing applications millimetre-waves offer advantages over lower frequency radar bands and infrared systems. In comparison to the IR-region the most important advantage is the good all weather capability. With respect to the microwave radar bands mainly the coupling of millimetre-waves to small surface structures of land and sea is significant. A coherent, polarimetric, high range resolution radar, operating at a nominal frequency of 94 GHz, has been installed on board an aircraft to allow remote sensing measurements in a side looking synthetic aperture approach. The paper describes the measurement system and discusses the evaluation procedures, imaging, with emphasis the applied SAR-algorithm and non-imaging analysis. Examples of airborne measurements are presented for remote sensing applications over land including waterways.