The SAR/GMTI airborne radar PAMIR: Technology and performance

PAMIR, a multifunctional SAR/GMTI imaging radar, combines the tremendous research potential of an experimental active broadband phased array system with the wide area of imaging procedures of mono- and bistatic systems. With its two different reconfigurable antenna frontend configurations operating a very high simultaneous bandwidth of 1.8 GHz in X-band, a variety of controversal requirements can be investigated and experimentally explored. The broadband beamforming together with azimuth wide scan capabilities (≥± 45°@1.8 GHz bandwidth of the antenna aperture) requires a switchable true time delay network with time increments equivalent to a fraction of a wavelength. The subarray structure including its time delay components are described. PAMIR serves as an ideal airborne platform for broadband SAR/GMTI research activities including interferometric image formation.