Exploitation of Geometric Diversity for High Resolution Ultrahigh Frequency (UHF) Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Imaging

TSC will develop software that exploits the rich geometric diversity of high resolution UHF-band SAR when the SAR flies a circular flight path about the scene of interest. TSC will develop and implement software that processes both UHF-band and VHF-band TRACER data to: 1) generate VideoSAR frames for full CFP orbits, 2) perform VideoCD using NCD / CCD / PCD, 3) generate 3-D tomographic cubes by coherently processing circular flight path frames from several CFP orbits, and 4) generate (and/or update) DEMs using the TRACER data from two or more circular flight path frames via stereo/interferometric techniques. These techniques will be initially developed on a Windows Workstation and will eventually be ported to the Desch HPC for final testing and demonstration. TSC will initially employ the TRACER UHF-band data that is currently available at TSC-CT for algorithm development. However, TSC will also process additional UHF-band and VHF-band data that is expected from the TRACER radar mounted on the Ikhana Predator-B for both CONUS and OCONUS collections. These collections are expected to support the generation of VideoSAR over a 20 km x 20 km footprint and therefore meet the long range Air Force goal for footprint size on the GREP program. BENEFIT: The UHF/VHF VideoSAR technology will address the military requirement for providing a real-time, wide-area persistent ISR capability, including image generation, change detection image generation, DEM generation, building, wall and road location maps, etc. (Note: As reported at the 2010 National Symposium on Sensor and Data Fusion, determining the locations of walls along the streets in urban areas of Middle East cities has been identified as a critical military need.) UHF VideoSAR is a complementary technology to microwave VideoSAR; although it has a coarser resolution, it is very effective at locating objects such as thin wires and vehicles, has a low false alarm rate due to the lack of target shadows, and is able to penetrate foliage and (to a degree) some soil types. UHF VideoSAR, even when performed with a multiple polarizations (typically HH, VV and HV), typically requires a much lower data link capacity than does microwave VideoSAR. The military services and Government agencies that would receive the greatest benefit from the Phase II results would be the Air Force and Army from the robust, persistent ISR capability, and the NGA from the detailed terrain/urban data that will be provided.