Coherent change detection and interferometric ISAR measurements in the folded compact range

A folded compact range configuration has been developed at the Sandia National Laboratories` compact range antenna and radar cross section measurement facility as a means of performing indoor, environmentally controlled far-field simulations of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) measurements of distributed target samples (i.e. gravel, sand, etc.). In particular, the folded compact range configuration has been used to perform both highly sensitive coherent change detection (CCD) measurements and interferometric inverse synthetic aperture radar (IFSAR) measurements, which, in addition to the two-dimensional spatial resolution afforded by typical interferometric SAR (ISAR) processing, provides resolution of the relative height of targets with accuracies on the order of a wavelength. This paper describes the development of the folded compact range, as well as the coherent change detection and interferometric measurements that have been made with the system. The measurement have been very successful, and have demonstrated not only the viability of the folded compact range concept in simulating SAR CCD and IFSAR measurements, but also its usefulness as a tool in the research and development of SAR CCD and IFSAR image generation and measurement methodologies