Monitoring and surveillance potentialities obtained by splitting the antenna of the COSMO-SkyMed SAR into multiple sub-apertures

The authors discuss the potentialities obtained by splitting the antenna of the COSMO-SkyMed synthetic aperture radar (SAR), developed by Alenia Spazio under contract to the Italian Space Agency and Italian Ministry of Defence, into multiple sub-apertures. The modified sensor has the capability to detect slowly moving ground targets that compete with the clutter Doppler spectrum. Special attention is devoted to a preliminary analysis of the signal processing techniques to be used. Moreover their capabilities for surveillance purposes are characterised based on theoretical and simulated results. Moreover the modified sensor is shown to allow sea current/wave monitoring by along-track SAR interferometry, relocation of moving targets in high resolution SAR images, and fully polarimetric imaging. Some practical implementation issues related to the possible modification are also briefly discussed.