High-Performance Polar Airborne Ultra-Wideband Radar Imaging Capability with a Light Turboprop Aircraft

Polar regions are among the least known and most challenging areas of Earth in terms of their topography, water mass and transport, and accessibility. This paper shows a solution for advanced SAR capabilities on a DHC-6 Twin Otter aircraft platform suitable for radar measurements of Polar regions. The aircraft is integrated with an 8-channel 170-470 MHz ultra-wideband (UWB) radar capable of sounding Polar ice sheets and ice layers down to the bed. We designed, constructed, and tested sub-systems, including a test of the RF electronics with a surface vehicle on the Greenland ice sheet.