Designing a Synthetic Aperture Radar’s Data Formatting and Antenna Gyro Stabilizing Module

The present paper describes the design strategies conceived to implement a module able to accomplish different tasks in the baseband environment of a synthetic aperture radar (SAR). This module, called the FGM (Formatting and Gyro stabilizing Module), is part of the QUASAR project for UAVs [1], currently being developed at INTA's radar laboratory [2]. The main features of the FGM can be resumed as followed: Receive, format, compress, filter, decimate and send raw data from the Acquisition Module to the radar's storage unit and the real time processing unit using serial line protocols; read back stored data or processed images and send them to a radio link module; synchronous generation of clock and attenuation data for the D/A Converters of the system; receive position and attitude data related to the movement of the airplane in order to adjust the transmission parameters of the radar and control the antenna's pointing direction (gyro stabilization); communicate with system's host through a PCIe bus and, finally, monitor the temperature gradients of the custom PCBs of the system.