Performance Evaluation of a Modified SweepSAR Mode for Quad-Pol Application in SAR Systems

Abstract

Efficient earth observation using spaceborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) requires the analysis of high-resolution wide-swath (HRWS) systems, which have a fine resolution and a short revisit time through wide-area observation, and quadrature-polarimetric (quad-pol) systems, which can obtain a quad-pol image and have many applications. The operational method of SAR generally affects system performance involving the system parameters and antenna patterns, and thus analyzing HRWS quad-pol SAR systems is essential to the system design. In this paper, an extension of the modified SweepSAR technique to a quad-pol observation scenario is performed and a comparison to ScanSAR and conventional SweepSAR is provided for a simulated scenario. On the basis of the system requirements, we selected the optimal parameters and designed a reflector antenna suitable for a wide-swath quad-pol SAR system. As a result of comparing the wide-swath quad-pol SAR operation modes, the modified SweepSAR mode demonstrated advantages in terms of system performance, such as the ambiguity ratio and swath width, and reflector antenna design for a spaceborne SAR system.