FlexSAR, a high-quality, flexible, cost-effective, prototype SAR system

Abstract

The FlexSAR radar system was designed to be a high quality, low-cost, flexible prototype instrument. Many radar researchers and practitioners desire the ability to efficiently prototype novel configurations. However, the cost and time required to modify existing radar systems is a challenging hurdle that can be prohibitive. The FlexSAR system couples an RF design that leverages connectorized components with digital commercial-offthe-shelf (COTS) cards. This design allows for a scalable system that supports software defined radio (SDR) capabilities. This paper focuses on the RF and digital system design, discussing the advantages and disadvantages. The FlexSAR system design objective was to support diverse configurations with minimal non-recurring engineering (NRE) costs. Multiple diverse applications are examined, demonstrating the flexible system nature. The configurations discussed utilize different system parameters (e.g., number of phase-centers, transmit configurations, etc.). The resultant products are examined, illustrating that high-quality data products are still attained.

Multi-static MIMO along track interferometry (ATI)

“…2 The FlexSAR system was designed to support agile adaptive radar behavior, which allows for collecting data in diverse modes. The modes outlined in Table 1 were collected in a single flight for analysis.…”

“…The simulated data is the same data used previously and shown in Figure 5, focusing on the higher frequency band centered at 9.95 GHz. The theoretical results are given by (2). This results in the simulated targets experiencing a phase as shown in Figure 7.…”

“…This result is from a previous multistatic collection obtained with the SDL's FlexSAR system. 1,2 The high resolution static SAR image coupled with the dynamic GMTI results provides high value situation awareness that has application for disaster relief, security, remote sensing, and military scenarios. This paper focuses on the advantages and disadvantages of a low-cost system.…”

Gps-Denied Navigation Using Sar Images And Neural Networks

“…For the real datasets, the radar data is obtained from flight tests of the Space Dynamics Laboratory X-band radar system [33]. A subcentimeter-accurate, post-processed trajectory is used as truth, and corrupted to synthesize distorted SAR images.…”