There is an increasing demand for multi-mode surveillance and reconnaissance missions employing UAV with SAR to gather tactical and / or strategic intelligence data. This demand is even more encouraged by the increasing capability of SAR, certainly when applied in a sensor fusion mode.
Specifically the UAV SAR sensor has replaced the UAV EO/IR sensors as the primary sensor as it offers many unique and valuable capabilities such a far range imaging, day-and-night / all-weather capability, Ground Moving Target Indication (GMTI), spotlight mapping, etc. The earlier limitations for full deployment of UAV SAR systems (limitations of on-board processing hardware and data acquisition capability) have been eliminated by the development of embedded processing systems. Processors become not only more powerful, they also become more agile, allowing reconfigurability “on-the-fly”.
These developments lead to definitions of true multi-mission UAV SAR payloads where processing becomes more and more an integrated part of the sensor. In addition to collecting the raw SAR data, today’s multi-mission on-board processing systems also have the capability of generating a set of advanced intelligence products ranging from images (stripmap / spotlight) to tactical information (e.g. moving targets). The inherent processing capability of such a multi-mission UAV payload allows sensor fusion of the SAR sensor with EO/IR imaging and ELINT sensor systems.
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