Synthetic Aperture Radar During the 50 Years of the Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society

Abstract

This document is a necessarily selective overview of achievements in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) technology during the 50 years of the Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society's existence. Advances in radar technology, fueled by the digital revolution, have led to a concomitant flowering of SAR applications in land, sea, air, and space. The development of coherent radar during World War II enabled the formation of a large, synthetic aperture, enabling microwave images with high lateral resolution, that is largely impervious to time of day and weather. We follow the history of this technology, from airborne platforms, onward onto satellites. We examine some of the achievements of SAR in a wide range of applications. SAR technology has now truly moved into the commercial exploitation phase, with almost an exponential growth in systems available to customers.