What is Synthetic aperture radar (SAR)?

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is a form of radar in which sophisticated post-processing

of radar data is used to produce a very narrow effective beam. It can only be used
by moving instruments over relatively immobile targets, but it has seen wide
applications in remote sensing and mapping.

(A) Basic operation

In a typical SAR application, a single radar antenna will be attached to the side of an
aircraft. A single pulse from the antenna will be rather broad (several degrees) because
diffraction requires a large antenna to produce a narrow beam. The pulse will also be
broad in the vertical direction; often it will illuminate the terrain from directly beneath the
aircraft out to the horizon. However, if the terrain is approximately flat, the time at which
echoes return allows points at different distances from the flight track to be distinguished.
Distinguishing points along the track of the aircraft is difficult with a small antenna.
However, if the amplitude and phase of the signal returning from a given piece of ground
are recorded, and if the aircraft emits a series of pulses as it travels, then the results from
these pulses can be combined. Effectively, the series of observations can be combined
just as if they had all been made simultaneously from a very large antenna; this process
creates a synthetic aperture much larger than the length of the antenna (and in fact much
longer than the aircraft itself).

Combining the series of observations is done using Fast Fourier Transform techniques; it
requires significant computational resources, and is normally done at a ground station
after the observation is complete. The result is a map of radar reflectivity (including both
amplitude and phase) on the ground. The phase information is, in the simplest
applications, discarded. The amplitude information, however, contains information about
ground cover, in much the same way that a black-and-white picture does. Interpretation is
not simple, but a large body of experimental results has been accumulated by flying test
flights over known terrain.

Before rapid computers were available the processing stage was done using holographic
techniques in what was one of the first effective analogue optic computer systems. A
scale hologram interference pattern was produced directly from the analogue radar data
(for example 1:1000000 for 0.6 meters radar) and a laser light with the same scale (in the
example 0.6 micrometers) passing through the hologram would produce a terrain
projection. This works because SAR is fundamentally very similar to holography with
microwaves instead of light.
(B) More complex operation
1) Polarimetry - Radar waves have a polarization. Different materials reflect radar
waves with different intensities, but anisotropic materials such as grass often reflect
different polarizations with different intensities. Some materials will also convert one
polarization into another. By emitting a mixture of polarizations and using receiving
antennas with a specific polarization, several different images can be collected from the
same series of pulses. Frequently three such images are used as the three color channels
in a synthesized image. This is what has been done in the picture above. Interpretation of
the resulting colors requires significant testing of known materials.

New developments in polarimetry also include utilizing the changes in the random
polarization returns of some surfaces (such as grass or sand), between two images of the
same location at different points in time to determine where changes not visible to optical
systems occured. Examples include subterranean tunneling, or paths of vehicles driving
through the area being imaged.
SAR image of Death Valley colored using polarimetry

2) Interferometry- Rather than discarding the phase information, information can

be extracted from it. If two observations of the same terrain from very similar positions
are available, a great deal of interesting information can be extracted. This technique is
called interferometric SAR or InSAR.

If the two samples are obtained simultaneously (perhaps by placing two antennas on the
same aircraft, some distance apart), then any phase difference will contain information
about the angle from which the radar echo returned. Combining this with the distance
information, one can determine the position in three dimensions of the image pixel. In
other words, one can extract terrain altitude as well as radar reflectivity, producing a
digital elevation model with a single airplane pass. One aircraft application at the Canada
Center for Remote Sensing produced digital elevation maps with a resolution of 5 m and
altitude errors also on the order of 5 m.

If the two samples are separated in time, perhaps from two different flights over the same
terrain, then there are two possible sources of phase shift. The first is terrain altitude, as
discussed above. The second is terrain motion: if the terrain has shifted between
obervations, it will return a different phase. The amount of shift required to cause a
significant phase difference is on the order of the wavelength used. This means that if the
terrain shifts by centimeters, it can be seen in the resulting image (A digital elevation map
must be available in order to separate the two kinds of phase difference; a third pass may
be necessary in order to produce one).

This second method offers a powerful tool in geology and geography. Glacier flow can
be mapped with two passes. Maps showing the land deformation after a minor earthquake
or after a volcanic eruption (showing the shrinkage of the whole volcano by several
centimeters) have been published.

3) Ultra-wideband SAR

Normal radar emits pulses with a very narrow range of frequencies. This places a lower
limit on the pulse length (and therefore the resolution in the distance direction) but
greatly simplifes the electronics. Interpretation of the results is also eased by the fact that
the material response must be known only in a narrow range of frequencies.

Ultra-wideband radar emits very short pulses consisting of a very wide range of
frequencies, from zero up to the radar's normal operating frequency. Such pulses allow
high distance resolution but much of the information is concentrated in relatively low
frequencies (with long wavelengths). Thus such systems require very large receiving
apertures to obtain correspondingly high resolution along the track. This can be achieved
with synthetic aperture techniques.

The fact that the information is captured in low frequencies means that the most relevant
material properties are those at lower frequencies than for most radar systems. In
particular, such radar can penetrate some distance into foliage and soil.

4) Multistatic operation

SAR requires that echo captures be taken at multiple antenna positions. The more
captures taken (at different antenna locations) the more reliable the target
characterization.

Multiple captures can be obtained by moving a single antenna to different locations, by

placing multiple stationary antennae at different locations, or combinations thereof.

The advantage of a single moving antenna is that it can be easily placed in any number of
positions to provide any number of monostatic waveforms. For example, an antenna
mounted on an airplane takes many captures per second as the plane travels.

The principal advantages of multiple static antennae are that a moving target can be
characterized (assuming the capture electronics are fast enough), that no vehicle or
motion machinery is necessary, and that antenna positions need not be derived from
other, sometimes unreliable, information. (One problem with SAR aboard an airplane is
knowing precise antenna positions as the plane travels).
For multiple static antennae, all combinations of monostatic and multistatic radar
waveform captures are possible. Note, however, that it is not advantageous to capture a
waveform for each of both transmission directions for a given pair of antennae, because
those waveforms will be identical. When multiple static antennae are used, the total
number of unique echo waveforms that can be captured is

where N is the number of unique antenna positions.

5) Differential interferometry

Differential interferometry (D-InSAR) requires taking at least two images with addition
of a DEM. The DEM can be either produced by GPS measurements or could be
generated by interferometry as long as the time between acquisition of the image pairs is
short, which guarantees minimal distortion of the image of the target surface. In principle,
3 images of the ground area with similar image acquisition geometry is often adequate for
D-InSar. The principle for detecting ground movement is quite simple. One interferogram
is created from the first two images; this is also called the reference interferogram or
topographical interferogram. A second interferogram is created that captures topography
+ distortion. Subtracting the latter from the reference interferogram can reveal differential
fringes, indicating movement. The described 3 image D-InSAR generation technique is
called 3-pass or double-difference method.

Differential fringes which remain as fringes in the differential interferogram are a result
of SAR range changes of any displaced point on the ground from one interferogram to
the next. In the differential interferogram, each fringe is directly proportional to the SAR
wavelength, which is about 5.6 cm for ERS and RADARSAT single phase cycle. Surface
displacement away from the satellite look direction causes an increase in path (translating
to phase) difference. Since the signal travels from the SAR antenna to target and back
again, the measured displacement is twice the unit of wavelength. This means in
differential interferometry one fringe cycle -pi to +pi or one wavelength corresponds to a
displacement relative to SAR antenna of only half wavelength (2.8 cm). There are
various publications on measuring subsidence movement, slope stability analysis,
landslide, glacier movement, etc tooling D-InSAR. Further advancement to this technique
whereby differential interferometry from satellite SAR ascending pass and descending
pass can be used to estimate 3-D ground movement. Research in this area has shown
accurate measurements of 3-D ground movement with accuracies comparable to GPS
based measurements can be achieved.
( C ) Doppler Beam Sharpening
A commonly used technique for SAR systems is called Doppler Beam
Sharpening. Because the real aperture of the RADAR antenna is so
small (compared to the wavelength in use), the RADAR energy
spreads over a wide area (usually many degrees wide in a direction
ortho-normal (right angle) to the direction of the platform (aircraft).
Doppler Beam Sharpening takes advantage of the motion of the
platform in that targets ahead of the platform return a Doppler up-
shifted signal (slightly higher in frequency) and targets behind the
platform return a Doppler down-shifted signal (slightly lower in
frequency). The amount of shift varies with the angle forward or
backward from the ortho-normal direction. By knowing the speed of
the platform, target signal return is placed in a specific angle "bin"
that changes over time. Signals are integrated over time and thus
the RADAR "beam" is synthetically reduced to a much smaller
aperture - or more accurately (and based on the ability to distinguish
smaller doppler shifts) the system can have hundreds of very "tight"
beams concurrently. This technique dramatically improves angular
resolution; however, it is far more difficult to take advantage of this
technique for range resolution.

( D) Chirped (Pulse Compressed) Radars

A common techniqe for many RADAR systems (sometimes found in SAR systems) is to
"chirp" the signal. In a "chirped" radar, the pulse is allowed to be much longer. A longer
pulse allows more energy to be emitted, and hence received, but usually hinders range
resolution. But in a chirped radar, this longer pulse also has a frequency shift during the
pulse (hence the chirp or frequency shift). When the "chirped" signal is returned, it is
passed to a dispersive delay line (often a SAW device (Surface Acoustic Wave) that has
the property of varying velocity of propogation based on frequency. This technique
"compresses" the pulse in time - thus having the effect of a much shorter pulse (improved
range resolution) while having the benefit of longer pulse length (much more signal
returned).

( E) Data collection
Highly accurate data can be collected by aircraft overflying the terrain in question. In the
1980s, as a prototype for instruments to be flown on the NASA Space shuttles, NASA
operated a synthetic aperture radar on a NASA CV-990. However, in 1986, this plane
crashed on takeoff. In 1988, NASA rebuilt a C, L, and P-band SAR to fly on the NASA
DC-8 aircraft. Called AIRSAR, it flew missions at sites around the world until 2004.
Another such aircraft was flown by the Canada Center for Remote Sensing until about
1996 when it was decommissioned for cost reasons. Most land-surveying applications are
now carried out by satellite observation. Satellites such as ERS-1/2, JERS-1, Envisat
ASAR, and RADARSAT-1 were launched explicitly to carry out this sort of observation.
Their capabilities differ, particularly in their support for interferometry, but all have
collected tremendous amounts of valuable data. The Space Shuttle has also carried
synthetic aperture radar equipment during the SIR-A and SIR-B missions during the
1980s, as well as the Shuttle Radar Laboratory (SRL) missions in 1994 and the Shuttle
Radar Topography Mission in 2000.

The Magellan space probe mapped the surface of Venus over several years using
synthetic aperture radar.

Synthetic aperture radar was first used by NASA on JPL's Seasat oceanographic satellite
in 1978 (this mission also carried an altimeter and a scatterometer); it was later developed
more extensively on the Spaceborne Imaging Radar (SIR) missions on the space shuttle
in 1981, 1984 and 1994. The Cassini mission to Saturn is currently using SAR to map the
surface of the planet's major moon Titan, whose surface is partially hidden from direct
optical inspection by atmospheric haze.

The Mineseeker Project ([1]) is designing a system for determining whether regions
contain landmines based on a blimp carrying ultra-wideband synthetic aperture radar.
Initial trials show promise; the radar is able to detect even buried plastic mines.

SAR has been used in radio astronomy for many years to simulate a large radio telescope
by combining observations taken from multiple locations using a mobile antenna.
A model of a German SAR-Lupe reconnaissance satellite inside a Cosmos-3M rocket.

SAR-Lupe is Germany's first reconnaissance satellite system. SAR is an abbreviation for

Synthetic Aperture Radar and "Lupe" is German for magnifying glass. The SAR-Lupe
program consists of five identical (770kg) satellites, developed by the German
aeronautics company OHB-System which are controlled by a ground station[1] which is
responsible for controlling the system and analysing the retrieved data. A large data
archive of images will be kept in a former Cold War bunker belonging to the Kommando
Strategische Aufklärung (Strategic Reconnaissance Command) of the Bundeswehr.

SAR-Lupe's "high-resolution" images can be acquired day or night through all weather
conditions. The first satellite was launched from Plesetsk in Russia on 19 December
2006, about a year after the intended launch date; four more satellites were launched at
roughly six-month intervals, and the entire system achieved full operational readiness on
22 July 2008.[2]

The five satellites operate in three 500-kilometre orbits in planes roughly sixty degrees
apart. They use an X-band radar with a three-metre dish, providing a resolution of about
50 centimetres over a frame size of 5.5km on a side ('spotlight mode', in which the
satellite rotates to keep the dish pointed at a single target) or about one metre over a
frame size of 8km x 60km ('stripmap mode', in which the satellite maintains a fixed
orientation over the earth and the radar image is formed simply by the satellite's motion
along its orbit). Response time for imaging of a given area is ten hours or less. Thales
Alenia Space provided the core of the Synthetic Aperture Radar sensors.[3]

The testing of SAR-Lupe involved an inverse procedure, in which the satellite, mounted
in a radome on Earth, was used to image the International Space Station, whose orbit is
reasonably close to the one the satellite will eventually be in. One-metre resolution at the
ISS was apparently achieved.

On 30 July 2002 a cooperation treaty between Germany and France was signed, under
which the SAR-Lupe satellites and the French Helios optical reconnaissance satellite will
operate jointly. Other EU countries have been invited to join as well and Italy has shown
considerable interest.

The AIRSAR Mission (1988-2004)

A Flying Laboratory AIRSAR instrument (panels behind wing) mounted aboard a

modified NASA DC-8 aircraft. During data collection, the plane flew at 8 kilometers
over the average terrain height at a velocity of 215 meters per second.
The Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (AIRSAR) was an all-weather imaging tool able
to penetrate through clouds and collect data at night. The longer wavelengths could also
penetrate into the forest canopy and in extremely dry areas, through thin sand cover and
dry snow pack. AIRSAR was designed and built by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
which also manages the AIRSAR project. AIRSAR served as a NASA radar technology
testbed for demonstrating new radar technology and acquiring data for the development
of radar processing techniques and applications. As part of NASA’s Earth Science
Enterprise, AIRSAR first flew in 1988, and flew its last mission in 2004.

UAVSAR

UAVSAR, a reconfigurable, polarimetric L-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR), is

specifically designed to acquire airborne repeat track SAR data for differential
interferometric measurements.

Differential interferometry can provide key deformation measurements, and is important

for studies of earthquakes, volcanoes and other dynamically changing phenomena.
Using precision real-time GPS and a sensor controlled flight management system, the
system will be able to fly predefined paths with great precision. The expected
performance of the flight control system require the flight path to be within a 10 m
diameter tube about the desired flight track.

The radar will be designed to be operable on a UAV (Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle), but
will initially be demonstrated on a on a NASA Gulfstream III. The radar will be fully
polarimetric, with a range bandwidth of 80 MHz (2 m range resolution), and will support
a 16 km range swath.

The antenna will be electronically steered along track to assure that the antenna beam can
be directed independently, regardless of speed and wind direction.

Other features supported by the antenna include elevation monopulse and pulse-to-pulse
re-steering capabilities that will enable some novel modes of operation. The system will
nominally operate at 45,000 ft (13800 m).

The program began as an Instrument Incubator Project (IIP) funded by NASA Earth
Science Technology Office (ESTO)

GEOSAR

GeoSAR is Fugro's unique commercial airborne remote sensing solution for mapping
over large, rugged and remote regions. As the world's only dual-band, single-pass
interferometric synthetic aperture radar (IFSAR) mapping system, GeoSAR concurrently
collects both surface features and bare-earth elevation data using X-band and P-band
radar. The system's profiling LiDAR simultaneously collects dynamic ground and quality
control data to reduce the need for people on the ground. Acquiring high-resolution
geospatial information with unprecedented speed and accuracy, Fugro's GeoSAR
mapping system solves the age-old problem of imaging and modeling geographic regions
obscured by clouds or dense vegetation.

Interferometric synthetic aperture radar, also abbreviated InSAR or IfSAR, is a radar

technique used in geodesy and remote sensing. This geodetic method uses two or more
synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images to generate maps of surface deformation or digital
elevation, using differences in the phase of the waves returning to the satellite [1] [2] [3], or
aircraft. The technique can potentially measure centimetre-scale changes in deformation
over timespans of days to years. It has applications for geophysical monitoring of natural
hazards, for example earthquakes, volcanoes and landslides, and also in structural
engineering, in particular monitoring of subsidence and structural stability.
Most SAR applications make use of the amplitude of the return signal, and ignore the
phase data. However interferometry uses the phase of the reflected radiation. Since the
outgoing wave is produced by the satellite, the phase is known, and can be compared to
the phase of the return signal. The phase of the return wave depends on the distance to the
ground, since the path length to the ground and back will consist of a number of whole
wavelengths plus some fraction of a wavelength. This is observable as a phase difference
or phase shift in the returning wave. The total distance to the satellite (i.e. the number of
whole wavelengths) is not known, but the extra fraction of a wavelength can be measured
extremely accurately.

In practice, the phase is also affected by several other factors, which together make the
raw phase return in any one SAR image essentially arbitrary, with no correlation from
pixel to pixel. To get any useful information from the phase, some of these effects must
be isolated and removed. Interferometry uses two images of the same area taken from the
same position (or for topographic applications slightly different positions) and finds the
difference in phase between them, producing an image known as an interferogram. This
is measured in radians of phase difference and, due to the cyclic nature of phase, is
recorded as repeating fringes which each represent a full 2π cycle.