Abstract
This article shows development and performance evaluation of a MicroX-SAR demonstration satellite, scheduled to be launched in 2020 for synthetic aperture radar (SAR) application. This compact SAR system and its instruments are briefly described. The SAR antenna consists of deployable seven panels with a slot array and the antenna size is 4.9 × 0.7 m. This article proposes a simple evaluation method of the SAR antenna. The seven-panel antenna array performance is estimated from isolated single-panel antenna measurement results and synthesized scattering matrix. It is validated by comparing with near-field measurement of a seven-panel antenna array. The on-board SAR system is combined with a single-point source simulator and the point source SAR image is evaluated. The ambiguity to the signal ratio is computed for the bandwidth-integrated seven-panel antenna radiation patterns, and finally the pulse repetition frequency selection is computed along with noise equivalent sigma zero to estimate the SAR image quality based on various requirements of swath-width and ground-range resolution as per the application of interest. The prototype system is capable of 1-m ground-range resolution SAR image acquisition for 28-km swath-width within acceptable limits of signal-to-noise ratio and ambiguity levels.
Highlights
T HE synthetic aperture radar (SAR) has several benefits for remote sensing applications compared to optical imagery like uninterrupted image acquisition even at night or during cloud cover
For our MicroX-SAR mission, we have developed a 130 kg small satellite with on-board SAR sensor
Seven-panel antenna array performance was accurately estimated by means of synthesis from the single-panel measurement results and cascaded scattering matrix
Summary
T HE synthetic aperture radar (SAR) has several benefits for remote sensing applications compared to optical imagery like uninterrupted image acquisition even at night or during cloud cover. Conventional SAR observation requires large or medium-size satellites weighing several hundred kilograms like TerraSAR-X [1] For our MicroX-SAR mission, we have developed a 130 kg small satellite with on-board SAR sensor. It is capable of 3-m resolution SAR image acquisition in a strip-map mode and 1-m resolution SAR image acquisition in the sliding spotlight mode within acceptable noise equivalent sigma zero (NESZ) tradeoff. This article is an extension of [9], here a more detailed development of the antenna system is shown and SAR image performance metrices are calculated from the synthesized and measured antenna array radiation patterns to evaluate the scope of earth observation applications, which can be catered to by the mission
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