Synthetic aperture radar provides broad-area imaging at high resolutions, which is used in applications such as environmental monitoring, earth-resource mapping, and military systems. This book presents the tools required for the digital processing of synthetic aperture radar images. They are of three types: (a) the elements of physics, (b) mathematical models and (c) image processing methods adapted to particular applications.

Modern airborne and spaceborne imaging radars, known as synthetic aperture radars (SARs), are capable of producing high-quality pictures of the earth's surface while avoiding some of the shortcomings of certain other forms of remote imaging systems. Primarily, radar overcomes the nighttime limitations of optical cameras, and the cloud- cover limitations of both optical and infrared imagers. In addition, because imaging radars use a form of coherent illumination, they can be used in certain special modes such as interferometry, to produce some unique derivative image products that incoherent systems cannot. One such product is a highly accurate digital terrain elevation map (DTEM). The most recent (ca. 1980) version of imaging radar, known as spotlight-mode SAR, can produce imagery with spatial resolution that begins to approach that of remote optical imagers. For all of these reasons, synthetic aperture radar imaging is rapidly becoming a key technology in the world of modern remote sensing. Much of the basic `workings' of synthetic aperture radars is rooted in the concepts of signal processing. Starting with that premise, this book explores in depth the fundamental principles upon which the spotlight mode of SAR imaging is constructed, using almost exclusively the language, concepts, and major building blocks of signal processing. Spotlight-Mode Synthetic Aperture Radar: A Signal Processing Approach is intended for a variety of audiences. Engineers and scientists working in the field of remote sensing but who do not have experience with SAR imaging will find an easy entrance into what can seem at times a very complicated subject. Experienced radar engineers will find that the book describes several modern areas of SAR processing that they might not have explored previously, e.g. interferometric SAR for change detection and terrain elevation mapping, or modern non-parametric approaches to SAR autofocus. Senior undergraduates (primarily in electrical engineering) who have had courses in digital signal and image processing, but who have had no exposure to SAR could find the book useful in a one-semester course as a reference.

This open access book focuses on the practical application of electromagnetic polarimetry principles in Earth remote sensing with an educational purpose. In the last decade, the operations from fully polarimetric synthetic aperture radar such as the Japanese ALOS/PalSAR, the Canadian Radarsat-2 and the German TerraSAR-X and their easy data access for scientific use have developed further the research and data applications at L,C and X band. As a consequence, the wider distribution of polarimetric data sets across the remote sensing community boosted activity and development in polarimetric SAR applications, also in view of future missions. Numerous experiments with real data from spaceborne platforms are shown, with the aim of giving an up-to-date and complete treatment of the unique benefits of fully polarimetric synthetic aperture radar data in five different domains: forest, agriculture, cryosphere, urban and oceans.

Written for students, remote sensing specialists, researchers and SAR system designers, Processing of SAR Data shows how to produce quality SAR images. In particular, this practical reference presents new methods and algorithms concerning the interferometric processing of SAR data with emphasis on system and signal theory, namely how SAR imagery is formed, how interferometry SAR images are created, and a detailed mathematical description of different focussing algorithms. Starting with the processing basics and progressing to the final geo-coded SAR data product, the book describes the complete processing steps in detail. Algorithms based on the effects of side-looking geometry are developed to correct foreshortening, shadowing and layover.

An up-to-date analysis of the SAR wavefront reconstruction signal theory and its digital implementation With the advent of fast computing and digital information processing techniques, synthetic aperture radar (SAR) technology has become both more powerful and more accurate. Synthetic Aperture Radar Signal Processing with MATLAB Algorithms addresses these recent developments, providing a complete, up-to-date analysis of SAR and its associated digital signal processing algorithms. This book introduces the wavefront reconstruction signal theory that underlies the best SAR imaging methods and provides clear guidelines to system design, implementation, and applications in diverse areas-from airborne reconnaissance to topographic imaging of ocean floors to surveillance and air traffic control to medical imaging techniques, and numerous others. Enabling professionals in radar signal and image processing to use synthetic aperture technology to its fullest potential, this work: * Includes M-files to supplement this book that can be retrieved from The MathWorks anonymous FTP server at ftp://ftp.mathworks.com/pub/books/soumekh * Provides practical examples and results from real SAR, ISAR, and CSAR databases * Outlines unique properties of the SAR signal that cannot be found in other information processing systems * Examines spotlight SAR, stripmap SAR, circular SAR, and monopulse SAR modalities * Discusses classical SAR processing issues such as motion compensation and radar calibration

Synthetic Aperture Radar Processing simply and methodically presents principles and techniques of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) image generation by analyzing its system transfer function. The text considers the full array of operation modes from strip to scan, emphasizes processing techniques, enabling the design of operational SAR codes. A simple example then follows. This book will be invaluable to all SAR scientists and engineers working in the field. It may be used as the basis for a course on SAR image generation or as a reference book on remote sensing. It contains a wide spectrum of information presented with clarity and rigor.