Compact SAR: a flexible multimission SAR satellite

Andrea Torre
Thales Alenia Space
Via Saccomuro, 24 00131
Rome, Italy
Andrea.torre@thalesaleniaspace.com

Abstract Thales Alenia Space (TAS) has started the

COMPACT-SAR internal programme to develop a SAR
satellite characterized by low cost and reduced mass while
providing, at the same time, high image quality in terms of
resolution, swath size, and radiometric performance.

TABLE 1: REFERENCE USER REQUIREMENTS VS. DIFFERENT APPLICATIONS

Polarizati
on

COMPACT-SAR is a satellite embarking an X-band SAR

based on a new technology for the Antenna Subsystem. It consists
of an innovative deployable reflector antenna fed by a small
active phased array, capable of electronic beam steering in both
azimuth and elevation planes. Thanks to this design, the
instrument can be operated in both STRIPMAP, DI2S (i.e.
enhanced resolution STRIPMAP) and SPOTLIGHT modes. Due
to the very high gain provided by the large reflector, the system
can also provide a real maritime surveillance mode based on the
TAS patented LowPRF mode.
The flexibility of the design, based on the large (5m) on-set
reflector is also exploited to define a version of the product
operating at L-band just by changing the feed array and the RF
back-end of the radar. TAS already has a product line on T/R
modules at L (and C) band, allowing this new development with
minimum risk.

Incidence
Angle

Res.

Swath

Revisit

Agricolture

Quad

20-45

30m

30km

15days

Cartography

Single/
dual

20-45

5m

variabl
e

seasonal

Disaster
Monitoring

Single/
dual

20-60

15/50m

100400km

<1day

Forestry

Quad

20-45

10m

100km

monthly

Geology

Dual/
Quad

20-60

5-10m

40100km

seasonal

Hydrology

Quad

20-45

5-10m

100km

<15 days

Oceanograph
y

Quad

45-60

30m

>300k
m

daily

Urban
Mapping

Quad

40-45

5m

40km

yearly

Defence
(X-band)

Quad/
Dual

20-60

1-3m

1030km

daily

Index TermsSAR, Compact SAR, L-Band,

II. ASSUMED REQUIREMENTS

I. INTRODUCTION

A. ITU regulations
According to ITU (i.e. Application bandwidths allocated in
Article 5 of the Radio Regulations) an L-band spaceborne SAR
must work in the range 1215 1300Mhz with a maximum
transmitted bandwidth of 85Mhz. For the COMPACT SAR-L
design it is assumed the nominal center frequency be set to
1257.5 Mhz; nevertheless, there could be the need (and the
SAR is designed accordingly) to set the center frequency to a
different value (and with a reduced pulse bandwidth) in order
to avoid the interference into RNSS (Radio Navigation Satellite
Service).

The L-band concept is designed to be an applicationoriented operational system. Due to the image quality
performance and operational capability the proposed system
can provide, it is dedicated to thematic mapping purposes for
topography, vegetation and deforestation, geology, hydrology,
etc.
It is also the natural complement to the Compact SAR-X
that can provide the optimal solution for any surveillance and
security application. Compact SAR-X main features are the
very high resolution, it can provide when operated in
SPOTLIGHT mode, due to the large bandwidth and the very
large azimuth steering offered by the mechanical rotaion of the
platform. A second key feature is the agility that provide the
maximum flexibility in acquiring high resolution images over a
small area of interest.
User requirements, for the different applications, used as a
benchmark to evaluate the suitability of an L-band system
based on Compact SAR, have been synthesized in Table 1.

c
978-1-4673-7297-8/15/$31.00 2015
IEEE

B. Design assumptions and constraints

The design driver at the base of the proposed instrument
concept is the maximum reuse of the developments on-going
for the Compact SAR. The achievable performance, and the
related reference requirements, that will be analyzed in the
following sections will be constrained by this design driver.

91

C. Bandwidth and resolution

The maximum achievable on ground resolution versus the
incidence angle is plotted in Figure 1 assuming no-weighting
function (left) or a Taylor function to reduce the PSLR to 35dB.
The possibility to program the pulse bandwidth according
to the specific incidence angle is assumed in the instrument
design in order to:
Maximize the NESZ
Minimize the output data rate
Nevertheless, the system can exploit the maximum
bandwidth at the larger incidence angles in order to maximize
the range resolution on ground.
6.5

The Compact SAR antenna size (20m2) provides quite good

performances in the access incidence angle interval 1540
(45 with some degradation in Range Ambiguity to Signal
ratio). In the defined access region [1545], typical swath
sizes in single/dual polarization modes will be 45km.
III. CONCEPTUAL INSTRUMENT DESIGN
The estimation of the achievable performance has been
computed with the assumptions reported in Table 2.
TABLE 2: SAR PARAMETERS ASSUMED IN PERFORMANCE ESTIMATION
Parameter

Value

Transmitted power

1000

Noise Temperature

300.00

Max Tx duty cycle

10

Rx loss

dB

2.00

Atmo. loss

dB

0.50

6
7

5.5
5

On-ground Resolution (m)

On-ground Resolution (m)

Unit

4.5
4
3.5
3

2.5
3
2
1.5
15

20

25

30

35
40
45
Incidence angle (deg)

50

55

2
15

60

20

25

30

35
40
45
Incidence angle (deg)

50

55

60

Fig. 1 : on-ground range resolution vs. incidence angle for fixed pulse
bandwidth B=85Mhz (left: no-weight; right: weight applied)

D. Swath width and access range

The access area, as well as the swath width, are closely
linked to the antenna area and dimension in the azimuth
direction. The access region is linked to the antenna area, by
(1). Figure 2 reports the evaluated antenna area vs. the
incidence angle for no margin factor (left) and with a margin
factor (1.25).
Working at an incidence angle larger than the one allowed
by the antenna size causes the increase of the Range Ambiguity
to Signal Ratio (RAR) to values that may impair the
exploitation of the acquired image. The margin factor, used in
the estimation of the minimum area size, takes account of the
possibility to shape the antenna beam in the elevation plane in
order to reduce the sidelobe levels for a better control of the
RAR.
WL

=k

4hv sin (i )
c cos 2 (i )

(1)

Rain loss

dB

0.40

Antenna Max Directivity

dBi

67.5

Azimuth beamwidth

deg

Minimum elevation beamwidth

deg

Maximum bandwidth

Mhz

85

A. SPOTLIGHT
A simplified imaging acquisition scenario has been defined
assuming the swath extension Sw> 25km and a minimum
overlap (1km). This assumption guarantee the generality of
the estimated results, a second iteration will consider a more
complex scenario where the defined beams will overlap at 50%
in order to provide a more reliable coverage of the user
requests in any condition.
The NESZ and Ambiguity to Signal Ratio values are
plotted in Figure 3. As predicted, beams above 40 incidence
angle show some marginality in the Range Ambiguity to Signal
Ratio, and NESZ.
Range DTAR [H=550 Km - Pol:HH ]

NESZ [H=550 Km - Pol:HH ]

-18

-10

-19

-15

-20

50

012

-21

011
008

-22

50
Antenna area (m2)

35
Antenna area (m2)

[ dB ]

40

30
25
20

-25

013

-30

010

-23
005

013

-35
006

009

007
008

002

-45

-25

014

010 011

-40

004

-24

40

012

009

007

004

003

005

003

002

-50

-26

30
-55

-27
001

001

15

20

-28
15

10

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

-60
15

Incidence angle []
10

20

25

30

35
40
45
Incidence angle (deg)

50

55

60

0
15

20

25

30

35
40
45
Incidence angle (deg)

50

55

60

Fig. 2 : Minimum antenna area (left) and antenna area with margin factor to
account of beam shaping (right) vs. incidence angle to avoid Range
Ambiguity, satellite altitude h=550km.

92

006

[ dB ]

60

0
15

-20

014

70

45

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

Incidence angle []

Fig. 3 : SPOTLIGHT NESZ and Ambiguity to Signal Ratio vs. Incidence

angle.

The on-ground range resolution is limited by the available

bandwidth (85Mhz). In the azimuth plane, the steering angle
and the integration time were set to have a nominal azimuth

2015 IEEE 5th Asia-Pacific Conference on Synthetic Aperture Radar(APSAR)

basic stripmap resolution (i.e. 3m) is exploited to

achieve the required number of looks.
NESZ: the requirement is met in average with
variation within the swath depending on the beam
shape (very close to a sinc function) that may as high
as 6dB between the edge and the center of the swath
AAR: there are some marginalities (w.r.t. a target
value of -20dB) in SPOTLIGHT mode for some of the
beams defined in the imaging acquisition scenario.
These marginality occur if image is processed for the
full azimuth resolution (0.5m), the multilook image
should not be affected by the problem.
RAR: there are some marginality (w.r.t. a target value
of -20dB) at the edge of the swath for the beams above
the 40 incidence angle, those effects are related to the
limited area of the antenna. The use of alternating the
chirp slope or the use of phase codes should be
investigated to reduce the effect.

resolution (single look) Raz=0.5m, which provides up to 6

looks for an azimuth resolution of 3m.

B. STRIPMAP 3m
The same imaging acquisition scenario of the SPOTLIGHT
mode is used.
The NESZ and Ambiguity to Signal Ratio are plotted in
Figure 4. Beams above 40 incidence angle show some
marginality in the Range Ambiguity to Signal Ratio
DTAR-2D [H=550 Km - Pol:HH ]

NESZ [H=550 Km - Pol:HH ]

-18

-12

-19

-14
014

-20

-16
011

-21

012

-23
004

-18

009

007

[ dB ]

006

-22

013

010

008

[ dB ]

014
013
012
011
010
009
008
007
006
005
004
003
002
001

-20

005

-22

-24
-24

003

-25
002

-26

-26
-27
15

-28
15

001

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

20

25

Incidence angle []

30

35

40

45

50

Incidence angle []

Fig. 4 : NESZ and ASR vs incidence angle

C. STRIPMAP 6m and STRIPMAP 12m

A simplified imaging acquisition scenario has been defined
assuming the swath extension Sw> 40km and a minimum
overlap (1km).
NESZ [H=550 Km - Pol:HH ]

TABLE 3: ESTIMATED PERFORMANCE SYNTHESIS TABLE

SPOT

STRIP-3

STRIP-6

STRIP-12

Access
region

deg

2045

Swath

km

25x25

25

40

40

Range

3-5

3-5

12

Azimuth

12

NESZ

dB

-19/-27

-19/-27

-18/-26

-22/-30

AAR

dB

-17/-25

-20/-27

-20/-27

-20/-27

RAR

dB

-22/-50

-25/-50

-24/-57

-24/-57

Looks

NESZ [H=550 Km - Pol:HH ]

-18

-21

-19

-22
-23

-20

-24

-21

[ dB ]

[ dB ]

-25

-22
-23

-26
-27

-24

008

008

-28

010

010
011

011

-25
004

005

009

007

004

-29

006

005

009

007
006

003

003

-26

001

-30
001

-27
15

20

002

002

25

30

35

40

-31
15

45

20

Incidence angle []

25

30

35

40

45

Incidence angle []

Fig. 5 : NESZ (left STRIPMAP 6m; right STRIPMAP 12m)

DTAR-2D [H=550 Km - Pol:HH ]
-10

-12

-12

-14

-14

-16

-16

-18

-18

[ dB ]

[ dB ]

DTAR-2D [H=550 Km - Pol:HH ]

-10

-20
-22

V. CONCLUSIONS

-20
-22

011
010
009
008
007
006
005
004
003
002
001

-24

-24

-26

-26
011
010
009
008
007
006
005
004
003
002
001

-28
15

20

25

30

35

Incidence angle []

40

45

-28
15

20

25

30

35

40

45

Incidence angle []

Fig. 6 : Total (Range+Azimuth) Ambiguity to Signal Ratio (left STRIPMAP

6m; right STRIPMAP 12m)

IV. PERFORMANCE SYNTHESIS

A synthesis of the estimated performance compared with
the reference requirements is reported in Table 3. The
following considerations can be done:
Swath width: it is always possible to define an
acquisition geometry with the required swath width
Resolution: the azimuth resolution is always met, as
well as the range resolution which is constrained by the
available bandwidth. For the SPOTLIGHT mode the
steering angle has been computed for a nominal
resolution of 0.5m in order to derive 6looks @3m
resolution. For STRIPMAP-6 and STRIPMAP-12 the

COMPACT-SAR is designed to be tailored to different

Customers needs. In particular, it is designed to operate with a
reference altitude in the range of 500 700 km in both SunSynchronous Orbits (SSO) and non SSO inclined orbits.
A high degree of innovation is presented in the design
considering the small SAR payload, the reflector antenna and
the remarkable sensor performance.
The deployment of the reflector antenna and the high power
amplifier, which are the main technological challenges for
similar projects, have been successfully coped with by the use
of the active phased array technology available in Thales
Alenia Space and by the design, development and qualification
of a large unfurlable solid reflector.
Presently CompactSAR-X development and qualification is
on-going and a preliminary design phase has started for the
CompactSAR-L solution.

2015 IEEE 5th Asia-Pacific Conference on Synthetic Aperture Radar(APSAR)

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