Hardware acceleration of the motion compensation algorithms in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) platforms

Fernando E. Ortiz; James P. Durbano; Eric J. Kelmelis; Michael R. Bodnar

doi:10.1117/12.680672

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24 August 2006 Hardware acceleration of the motion compensation algorithms in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) platforms

Fernando E. Ortiz, James P. Durbano, Eric J. Kelmelis, Michael R. Bodnar

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Proceedings Volume 6312, Applications of Digital Image Processing XXIX; 63120D (2006) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.680672
Event: SPIE Optics + Photonics, 2006, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) techniques employ radar waves to generate high-resolution images in all illumination/weather conditions. The onboard implementation of the image reconstruction algorithms allows for the transmission of real-time video feeds, rather than raw radar data, from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), saving significant communication bandwidth. This in turn saves power, enables longer missions, and allows the transmission of more useful information to the ground. For this application, we created a hardware architecture for a portable implementation of the motion compensation algorithms, which are more computationally intensive than the SAR reconstruction itself, and without which the quality of the SAR images is severely degraded, rendering them unusable.

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Fernando E. Ortiz, James P. Durbano, Eric J. Kelmelis, and Michael R. Bodnar "Hardware acceleration of the motion compensation algorithms in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) platforms", Proc. SPIE 6312, Applications of Digital Image Processing XXIX, 63120D (24 August 2006); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.680672

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