Shifting MIMO SAR System for High-Resolution Wide-Swath Imaging

Abstract

A multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) system is presented for high-resolution wide-swath imaging. For a system with N transmit and N receive antennas, the proposed method using slope-varying chirp signals, azimuth beamwidth extension, and transmit antenna shift can give an increased azimuth resolution or a decreased pulse repetition frequency (PRF), which results in wider swath width, by a factor of N compared to a SAR system based on a displaced phase center antenna. To verify the proposed shifting MIMO SAR system, we carried out the point target simulations and the timing analysis which showed enhanced resolution and widened swath width performances.