L-Band Digital Array Radar Demonstrator for Next Generation Multichannel SAR Systems

Successful state-of-the-art space synthetic aperture radar (SAR) systems-based in active electronic steerable antenna (AESA) have reached a high degree of operation flexibility and achieved performance. Nevertheless, the possibility to provide wide-swath images with high resolution is still a challenge requiring the application of new concepts and system architectures. Multiple channel-based SAR systems have become the perfect trend to follow in next generation SAR programs, as they will allow to overcome the resolution/coverage tradeoff by enabling the application of digital beamforming (DBF) or multiple input multiple output (MIMO) techniques. This paper presents a multichannel reconfigurable SAR system prototype concept being developed as demonstrator for next generation SAR operation and applications, enabling the use of DBF on receive or MIMO-SAR. System architecture and key subsystems are described, with emphasis in reconfigurable capabilities and internal calibration. Example performance results for practical application of presented architecture are also provided.