Processing and Control Station and Data Link for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar

Topic N97-104 has the objective of developing innovative instrumentation to obtain marine atmospheric and oceanographic variables in 3-D space and time. The proposed effort addresses several key areas that are mentioned in the solicitation: (1) application to the air/sea environment of the open ocean, continental slope and the very near-shore surf zone; (2) support of active electromagnetic sensors, in this case Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) remote sensing of the air-sea interface; (3) use of off-the-shelf, low-cost components.The area of investigation is the development of a new type of data link and a mobile ground Processing and Control Station (P&CS) to support an RPV or small manned aircraft that is being used to collect interferometric synthetic aperture radar (INSAR) or SAR data. The P&CS permits remote control of the RPV mission, monitoring of the GPS location of the RPV,display of real-time radar data to ensure data quality, and permits use of high-capacity commercial recording devices that would otherwise be too heavy and too power-hungry for use aboard the vehicle carrying the radar.