Air
Force Military Educational and Scientific Center “Air Force Academy named after
Professor N.E. Zhukovsky and Y.A. Gagarin”, St. Bolshevikov 54a, Voronezh
394064, Russia
The paper is received on April 2, 2019
Abstarct.
The paper presents a brief summary of the authors' experience of design and
practical work with small-sized high-resolution SARs placed on small
aircraft-type UAVs, and demonstration of the first results of practical radar
survey of the earth and sea surface from board of a multicopter. The
capabilities, composition and specifications of the SAR family are considered,
the results of detailed survey of the parcels in L-, C - and X-wavelength
ranges, including full polarimetric ones, are presented. The main difficulties
of both scientific and engineering-practical nature, which the authors had to
face during the creation of small-sized SARs, as well as the approaches used to
overcome them, are considered. It is shown that the developed and improved
algorithms of signal processing and radar imaging, and technology provided the
possibility of creating a small-sized software SAR on a multicopter type UAV.
The presented results of the experiments in the earth and sea surface surveying
from the board of the DJIMatrice 600 multicopter confirm the SAR possibility of
radar imaging with a resolution of up to 30 centimeters at a maximum range of
up to six kilometers. The main direction of further reducing the weight-size
parameters of the SAR is the design of its own antenna system, taking into
account the design features of the carrier. According to forward estimates, it
will reduce the total weight of the kit from two to one-one and a half
kilograms, and, as a result, will provide an expansion of the list of potential
SAR carriers. The obtained results allow us to consider as successful the first
experiments of plane surveying with the use of multicopter as a carrier of SAR
in our country and to conclude not only about the lack of lag in this respect
from foreign developers, but also about some advance of them.
Keywords: Synthetic
aperture radar, continuous waveform radiation, radar signal processing,
High-resolution imaging, multicopter.
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