Conceptual design of an ultra high-resolution MM-wave synthetic aperture radar

The paper describes the design of a rail-mounted ultra high-resolution MM-wave synthetic aperture radar, to be used for wave-tank experiments to investigate the mechanisms by which internal waves are imaged in SAR images. Firstly, a specification for the radar is derived, and the design presented at block diagram level. The FMCW technique is particularly well suited to such an application, since it permits high range resolution and high processing gain at the same time as modest digital sampling and processing rates. Details are also presented of two interesting aspects of the design, namely: (i) the effect of FMCW sweep non-linearities and the technique used for sweep linearisation, and (ii) the synthetic aperture and autofocus processing.