Scalable Architectures for Distributed Beam-Forming Synthetic Aperture Radar (DBSAR)

Conventional SAR operates in the Stripmap mode. Wide unambiguous swath coverage and high azimuth resolution pose contradictory requirements on the design of SAR systems. A promising technique to overcome this limitation is Digital Beam-Forming (DBF) on receive where the receiving antenna is split into multiple sub-apertures. This provides the capability of forming multiple beams via post-processing. DBF techniques applied to SAR systems can increase receiving antenna gain without a reduction of the imaged area and suppress interference signals. A highly capable DBSAR instrument design would consist of wideband Transmitter-Receiver Module (TRM), precise multi-channel timing and synchronization and reconfigurable processing engine that can host the SAR processing, calibration and control routines. IAI?s proposed approach is modular, scalable and meets the NASA goals of developing an innovative analog/digital hardware design for the implementation of distributed DBSAR architectures.

This is a mature technology (TRL 7+) — the realistic path in is usually NASA's Technology Transfer Program: licensing an existing NASA patent, or a Space Act Agreement to use NASA facilities/expertise directly. NASA also runs a startup licensing program with no upfront fee for companies formed to commercialize a specific NASA technology.

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