Assembly for onboard SAR data processing. Phase 1: Experimental pretesting along with design activities

The real time azimuth compression of the radar signals for onboard applications by means of a SAR processor requires a large amount of arithmetic operations which can only be performed with acceptable power consumption if low power LSI circuits are available. The analog correlator R 5403 of RETICON meets this condition. A 64 point complex correlator was implemented by means of this device. The real time tests were carried out successfully. One million, four hundred thousand image points per second are achieved at a clock rate of 2 MHz. The power consumption of a complete correlator covering a swath of 100 km was measured to be 100 Watt. The correlator was tested with a SAR simulator which supplied the raw radar data.