Multi-Channel SAR Image Reconstruction using Data of DLR’s New DBFSAR Airborne System

A major challenge facing state-of-the-art spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) missions is to provide high-resolution wide-swath (HRWS) imagery. The need to keep a low azimuth sampling rate and to achieve in the same time wider swaths is no more a limitation for high resolution SAR systems, if a multichannel sensor is used and the right reconstruction algorithm is implemented. This paper studies the applicability of an existing Digital Beamforming (DBF) reconstruction algorithm to real multichannel X-band data, acquired by the new DLR DBFSAR airborne system. The investigation analyses the impact of the reconstruction on the azimuth ambiguities and also discusses potential areas of improvement to be addressed in future research.