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Title: Flight demonstration of image fix-taking with SAR

Conference ·
OSTI ID:7368548
;  [1];  [2]
  1. Draper (Charles Stark) Lab., Inc., Cambridge, MA (United States)
  2. Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM (United States)

Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) uses coherent radar processing techniques to image ground reflectors. After processing, range and Doppler can be associated with any feature of interest in the final image. The location of any imaged feature can be estimated using a Kalman filter to combine these data with GPS and INS navigation data. This paper reports on the results of a flight demonstration of such a system, using an airborne SAR developed at Sandia. Collected data consisted of multiple SAR images containing surveyed reflectors. GPS/INS output taken aboard the aircraft, and GPS output recorded at surveyed ground stations. These data were post-processed at Sandia and at Draper Laboratory to obtain a navigation solution based on differential GPS and to demonstrate SAR fix-taking performance. This study successfully demonstrates accuracy of about 1 meter for fixing the position of a point imaged with SAR from an airborne platform. Because differential GPS was used, the navigation error was of about the same magnitude as the SAR range measurement error. Consequently, the measurements served primarily to fix the SAR image rather than to update the navigator.

Research Organization:
Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE; USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
DOE Contract Number:
AC04-76DP00789
OSTI ID:
7368548
Report Number(s):
SAND-93-0779C; CONF-9306185-1; ON: DE93016499
Resource Relation:
Conference: 49. Institute of Navigation annual meeting, Cambridge, MA (United States), 21-23 Jun 1993
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English