Dutch Knowledge Network on Radar Instruments and Applications (NL-RIA)

Summary of the project

The major goal of the NL-RIA Project is the study of breakthrough technologies for the implementation of miniaturized radar instruments that are compatible with SmallSat Earth Observation missions. Because of their expected viability, emphasis initially is on two classes of instruments:

• Radar Altimeters
• Synthetic Aperture Radars (SARs).

In both cases, the horizon are constellations of spacecraft, which are only economically feasible if the targeted miniaturization is successful. Of particular interest are multistatic mission concepts, with several spacecraft acting as a single distributed radar system.

Our Contribution

Our research aims to assess the impacts of the system parameters, like baselines in along track and cross track, the accuracy of baselines and the timing and phase synchronization errors on the final SAR image. For this purpose, the state of the art will be generalized to cover a multistatic SAR constellation that has the capability to achieve both along and cross track interferometry and wide swath width. This constellation is an all in one solution that serves various products as it is expected for the future Earth observation systems.

Research Questions

• Evaluate and prioritize potential instruments and mission concepts
• Derive high-level user requirements for the selected mission concept.
• Identify the main technological bottlenecks, and take first steps to address them, determining the most promising solutions, and proposing technological development roadmaps. As one of the preidentified critical areas, we focus on system synchronization in the case of distributed systems and on-board processing.
• Carry out a phase-0 feasibility study for the selected concepts, including radar performance analysis of the proposed instrument and of the proposed mission.

For more information, see the project homepage.