MIMO-SAR Imaging System on board a UAV

In the last few years, radar systems on board Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have experienced a significant development. This research effort, driven by the multiple applications of these systems, has mainly focused on improving their detection capabilities. However, there are several other aspects of these systems that remain a challenge. This contribution presents a Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output Synthetic Aperture Radar (MIMO-SAR) imaging system on board a UAV, which allows to significantly increase the information gathered per unit of time. In particular, an array of 3 transmitters and 4 receivers was integrated into a UAV platform, and several test measurements were performed. Results show that this configuration enables to retrieve high quality radar images, while reducing the required flight time to scan a given area.