Engineering topics
Publications and source records attributed to Cutrona, L. J..
Studies to achieve wide swath widths in Synthetic Aperture Radar are described. The use of multiple beams in range and/or azimuth is considered. Radar system parameters for a number of cases are computed.
The available and optimal methods for generating SAR imagery for NASA applications were identified. The SAR image quality and data processing requirements associated with these applications were studied. Mathematical operations and algorithms required to process sensor data into SAR imagery were defined. The architecture of SAR image formation processors was discussed, and technology necessary to implement the SAR data processors used in both general purpose and dedicated imaging systems was addressed.
The radar range equation including processing gains for pulse compression and synthetic aperture generation was the starting point. System geometry considerations were introduced. For simplicity, flat earth geometry was used, although it was realized that this was not a good model for satellite-borne radars. Next, the constraints were introduced. These included those needed to avoid ambiguities in both range and azimuth, those needed to acheive the desired resolution, and those needed to achieve the desired swath width.