Side-Looking Airborne Radar for Remote Sensing Applications: Results of the First Campaign

Abstract

A Side-Looking Airborne Radar (SLAR) has been developed at the Space Applications Centre, Ahmedabad for remote sensing applications. First campaign of this unit was carried out using a DC-3 aircraft from 22nd May—30 May 1980 over Gujarat. The quality of the data/imagery obtained is highly satisfactory. Resolution on the imagery is around 20 metres. Water land boundaries, man-made structures, vegetated lands, hilly areas etc. could be easily identified on the imagery. The paper deals with the principles of operation, details of the system developed, the campaign and the results.

Indexing Terms:

• Remote Sensing
• Airborne Radar
• SLAR

Additional information

Notes on contributors

N.S. Pillai

Pillai, N S: Graduated from PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore in 1967 and received the M. Tech. degree with specialization in Microwave and Radar Engineering from IIT, Bombay in 1969. He was with IIT, Bombay as a member of the research staff till he joined the Indian Space Research Organisation at Ahmedabad in March 1971. His early responsibilities included the design and development of the C-band Cassegrain antenna and conically scanning high power feed with polarisation diversity for the tracking radar successfully developed for SLV-3 tracking. He was with Thomson-CSF, France from April 1974 to December 1974 under ISRO-CNES exchange programme for training in the field of Space-borne Synthetic Aperture Radar. Since his return, he is mainly responsible for the planning and development of microwave sensors for remote sensing apart from his participation in the development of transponder for APPLE communication satellite to be launched early 1981 by ESA.

He has published/presented several papers in national/international journals/symposia.

M.N. Vyas

Vyas, Mahendra Nath: Was born on August 19, 1956 in Jodhpur (Rajasthan), received B.E. degree in Electronics & Communication Engineering from M.B.M. Engineering College, Jodhpur, in 1977.

Since then, he is associated with the Microwave components and subsystem division of SAC. He was involved in the design and development of microwave mixers, multipliers, filters for ‘APPLE’ communication transponder. Currently, he is engaged in system design, integration and operational activities related to side-looking airborne radar, alongwith other design and development work at microwave frequency.