Abstract:

An innovative concept of staring digital multiple beam synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is presented for overcoming the shortcoming of traditional SAR in long-range high-resolution wide-swath imaging. The new imaging concept can avoid the restriction in the traditional one by dividing the imaging area into several sub-patches to image independently. In addition, the digital beam-forming (DBF) technology and the whole elements of aperture are employed to form and control multiple receiver beams in elevation and azimuth. The receiver ones are used to achieve the staring observation of each subpatch, which can extend the time of imaging and improve the resolution. The system model is built to analyze the performance of imaging. The simulation shows that the staring digital multi-beam SAR can not only achieve the high-resolution wide-swath imaging with great performance, but also reduce the transmitter power by enlarging the aperture of antenna, which can extend the application of SAR.