Multi-frequency polarimetric synthetic aperture radar for surface and subsurface sensing

The aircraft based multi-frequency polarimetric SAR "IMARC" developed for radar Earth observation is presented. The improved SAR complex includes 4 frequency bands (X,L,P and VHF) with corresponding wavelengths of 4, 23, 68 and 254 em. This SAR allows carrying out measurements from left and right side of the aircraft at different linear polarizations: W, HH, VH and WV. The spatial resolution is: 1.5-3 m in X-band, 4- 6 m in L-band, 6-8 m in P-band and 8-16 m in VHF-band. The system collects and processes the radar data in order to get the images in real time. The SAR complex will be used for determining soil hydrological aspects, for examining characteristics of vegetation, snow, ice and frozen soils, and for subsurface sensing in order to locate artificial and natural objects, as well as different natural anomalies.