Near-Space slow SAR high-resolution and Wide-Swath imaging concepts

In comparison with airborne SAR, Near-Space SAR can provide much larger and long term coverage of the interested ground scene. Moreover, Near-Space SAR owns shorter revisit period and better motor ability than space-borne case. In fact, Near-Space SAR is potential to provide robust survivability, high resolution, wide swath and high revisiting frequency that we have desperately wanted. Current researches of Near-Space SAR focus on fast-speed platform which encounters contradiction between azimuth high resolution and range wide swath. To solve it and achieve sustained imaging, Low-Speed SAR is introduced in this paper. Joint Aperture Technology is then proposed to make full use of the redundant pulse reputation frequency and obtain wide area imaging fast. Performances of the simulations given at the end of the paper verify the effectiveness of the proposed imaging concepts.