FMCW-based SAR transmitter for remote sensing application and its characterization

Remote sensing based on radar technology has been gaining popularity in last decade. The flexibility to be operated in both day and night is the main benefit of this remote sensing technology. Active remote sensing using synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is the one of technique to do the observation, and an aircraft is one of platform that has been used to be installed by the radar device. The development of FMCW-based SAR transmitter for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) is the interest point focused in this paper. An UAV is a small aircraft that is operated remotely. The choice of components for SAR transmitter is considered to be as compact as possible so it could be installed in a UAV. The components such as chirp generator, Voltage Controlled Oscillator (VCO), mixer, combiner/splitter, and RF power amplifier have been selected with performance, size, and power consumption consideration. Each component has been characterized and then integrated each other as a system in 3 layers of 100mm × 100mm board.