Digital Simulation of a Synthetic Aperture Radar.

• Main Author: Goldfinger,A. D.
• Other Authors: JOHNS HOPKINS UNIV SILVER SPRING MD APPLIED PHYSICS LAB
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1975
• Subjects: Active & Passive Radar Detection & Equipment; *SYNTHETIC APERTURE RADAR; OCEAN WAVES; OCEAN SURFACE; COMPUTER PROGRAMMING; DIGITAL SIMULATION; SCIENTIFIC SATELLITES; SEASAT-A satellite; Sea ice
• Online Access: http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA011831; http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA011831

To evaluate a synthetic aperture radar being designed for the SEASAT-A satellite a digital simulation was undertaken. A system operating in spotlight mode with step-chirp pulse compression was modeled. A bottleneck analysis of the software led to an economical implementation of this model. The ocean scattering model used assumed Rayleigh statistics. Ocean surface models representing chaotic seas and deterministic patterns, such at sea ice and oil slicks, were viewed by the radar. The effects of single-bit quantization of the signal, data thinning by random deletion of the signal, and coherent breakup of the image were investigated. Analytic models of image degradation owing to single-bit processing and image spectral distortion that is due to coherent breakup were developed and found to be consistent with the results of the simulation.