A Synthetic Aperture Imaging Concept for a Sequential Sampling Impulse Radar

Sequential sampling impulse radar, which is known for its low complexity and potential energy efficiency, has seen limited exploration of its imaging capabilities, particularly for synthetic aperture radar (SAR) focusing. This paper fills this gap by introducing a phase-based SAR imaging concept for a sequential sampling impulse radar without IQ-mixer. This work outlines a mathematical model for the received echo signal and processing steps to extract the phase information from the real-valued radar data. Experimental validation is performed in an outdoor scenario. The measurement results demonstrate successful phase-based SAR focusing, overcoming the limitations of amplitude-based reconstruction. The signal processing and imaging concept shown in this paper, combined with the used 1.35 GHz sequential sampling impulse radar systems, is intended for future use in glaciological research for the enhanced monitoring of glacier stratification, but it is also suitable for many other high-resolution ground penetrating radar (GPR) applications.