VSAR - A HIGH-RESOLUTION RADAR SYSTEM FOR OCEAN IMAGING

The velocity synthetic aperture radar (VSAR) is a conceptual synthetic aperture radar (SAR)-based sensor system for high resolution ocean im aging, The VSAR utilizes data collected by a multielement SAR system, to extract information not only about the radar reflectivity of the ob served area, but also about the radial velocity of the scatterers in e ach pixel. This Is accomplished by making use of the phase information contained in multiple SAR images, and not just the magnitude informat ion as in conventional SAR. Using this velocity information, the VSAR attempts to compensate for the velocity distortion inherent in convent ional SAR and to reconstruct the ocean reflectivity We present the bas ic theory of the VSAR system and its performance. We also provide an a nalysis of the VSAR imaging mechanism for a statistical model of the r adar returns, designed to capture the effects of speckle and of resolu tion degradation due to the decorrelation of the radar returns.