A Satellite On-Board SAR Processing Chain for Generation of Rapid Civil Alerts

This paper describes the concept and prototype implementation of a satellite on-board SAR processing chain designed for Maritime Situation Awareness. It aims to reduce the latency between data acquisition and product delivery to about 3-4 minutes. SAR processing is one component of a larger prototype system being developed in the frame of the H2020 EO-ALERT project. It further comprises an optical data chain, data compression/encryption, and delivery. The system employs multiple boards with Multi-Processor-System-On-Chip (MPSoC) combining FPGAs and ARM CPUs. A tailored workflow and adapted L1 and L2 processing algorithms ensure that the requirements for latency and product quality are met.