Phased Array Technology Developments for Next Generation European Spaceborne SARs with Digital Beamforming

This paper provides an overview of the main phased array technology developments supported by the European Space Agency for next generation synthetic aperture radars based on digital beamforming. Particular emphasis is given to technology developments for C-band SARs, supporting the evolution required for the Copernicus Sentinel-1 next generation satellites. The initiated developments target in particular improved performance on coverage and spatial resolution. The status of on-going technology developments at sub-system level is provided, mainly describing, tile demonstrators, digital beamforming units and T/R modules.