A global review of optronic synthetic aperture radar/ladar processing
2013
Synthetic aperture (SA) techniques are currently employed in a variety of imaging modalities, such as radar (SAR) and
ladar (SAL). The advantage of fine resolution provided by these systems far outweighs the disadvantage of having large
amounts of raw data to process to obtain the final image. Digital processors have been the mainstay for synthetic
aperture processing since the 1980’s; however, the original method was optical that is, it employed lenses and other
optical elements. This paper provides a global review of a compact light weight optronic processor that combines optical
and digital techniques for ultra-fast generation of synthetic aperture images. The overall design of the optronic processor
is detailed, including the optical design and data control and handling. As well, its real-time capabilities are
demonstrated. Example ENVISAT/ASAR images generated optronically are also presented and compared with
ENVISAT Level 1 products. As well, the extended capabilities of optronic processing, including wavefront correction
and interferometry are discussed. Finally, a tabletop synthetic aperture ladar system is introduced and SAL images
generated using the exact optronic processor designed for SAR image generation are presented.
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