Digital Beamforming for HRWS-SAR Imaging: System Design, Performance and Optimization Strategies

Multi-aperture synthetic aperture radar (SAR) systems in combination with an appropriate coherent processing of the individual aperture signals enable high resolution wide swath (HRWS) SAR imaging [1]-[8]. An innovative reconstruction algorithm for such a digital beamforming on receive was presented in [9]-[12] that allows for HRWS even in case of a non-uniformly sampled data array in azimuth. This paper will compare this algorithm to different azimuth processing strategies regarding their performance in dependency of the overall sampling. Further, optimization strategies are discussed to maximize the system's performance by pattern tapering on transmit and "Pre-Beamshaping on Receive" networks that allow for pattern tapering on receive and adaptively adjust the virtual sample positions.