Ground-Based Rotational SAR System for Field-Experiments

A C-band ground-based rotational SAR system is presented in this paper. The rotaional SAR system is a test-bed for future rotational SAR systems which can be deployed in space and on a tower. The test-bed system is designed for imaging the electromagnetic scattering from earth surfaces and buried targets. This paper also presents the examination results of the generated SAR images. This rotational SAR system is basically consisted of the network-analyzer based HPS(Hongik Polarimetric Scatterometer) and a horizontally rotating arm. Several SAR images were obtained using the rotational SAR system for various target areas. To verify this system, we simulated the SAR images for the rotational SAR using the FDTD algorithm and compared between the measured and simulated SAR images. The rotational SAR system is operated at the center frequency of 5 GHz and various frequency bandwidth within 0.5~2 GHz to change the resolution of SAR images.