Open AccessExperimental operation of drone micro‐SAR with efficient time‐varying velocity compensation
Author(s) -
Lee W.K.,
Lee K.W.
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
electronics letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.375
H-Index - 146
eISSN - 1350-911X
pISSN - 0013-5194
DOI - 10.1049/el.2017.0801
Subject(s) - drone , synthetic aperture radar , computer science , payload (computing) , motion compensation , inverse synthetic aperture radar , compensation (psychology) , radar , sensitivity (control systems) , remote sensing , rotor (electric) , radar imaging , computer vision , artificial intelligence , engineering , electronic engineering , telecommunications , electrical engineering , psychology , computer network , genetics , network packet , psychoanalysis , biology , geology
Drone platform for synthetic aperture radar (SAR) operation has been little publicised due to the technical constraint of the payload implementation. Multi‐rotor drone based SAR is distinguished from the conventional airborne system by the increased sensitivity to turbulences and poor motion stability. Extremely limited power and mass budgets may prevent the use of extra hardware for motion compensation and the difficulty of SAR focusing is aggravated. Feasibility of micro‐SAR drone operation is investigated through field tests, where experimental SAR images are acquired over ground targets. Attempts have been made to implement near‐real‐time compensation for non‐uniform motion disturbance. Finally, experimental drone SAR operation is validated through calibrated SAR images.