• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.167-175
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• 1999

So far, the remote sensing technology has widely been used in a variety of application areas such as military, medical imaging, environment, geology and so forth. The microwave remote sensing uses the wavelengths ranging from around one centimeter up to a few tens of centimeters and is known to be very effective regardless of the weather conditions and the day/night time as compared with the reflective InfraRed (IR) remote sensing or the thermal IR remote sensing. There are three generic modes of synthetic aperture radar imaging systems depending on its application, that is, stripmap mode, spotlight mode, or inverse mode. In this article we focus on the issue of imaging of flying aircrafts for the inverse mode of a ground - based, fixed radar with moving objects. The imaging of flying aircrafts is considered to be an important step for the automatic target recognition systems, and therefore a great deal of efforts have recently been made on the subject. Here we review the three representative methods including the Fourier transform processing, the time - frequency processing, and the reconstruction from the projection. Some relative merits and drawbacks are also discussed.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.275-281
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• 2019

A synthetic aperture radar(SAR) satellite is more effective than an optical satellite for target analysis because an SAR satellite can provide two-dimensional electromagnetic scattering distribution of a target during all-weather and day-and-night operations. To conduct target analysis while considering the earth observation interval of an SAR satellite, observing a specific area as wide as possible would be advantageous. However, wider the observation area, worse is the resolution of the associated SAR satellite image. Although conventional methods for improving the resolution of radar images can be employed for addressing this issue, few studies have been conducted for improving the resolution of SAR satellite images and analyzing the performance. Hence, in this study, the applicability of conventional methods to SAR satellite images is investigated. SAR target detection was first applied to Korea Multipurpose Satellite-5(KOMPSAT-5) SAR images provided by Korea Aerospace Research Institute for extracting target responses. Extrapolation, RELAX, and MUSIC algorithms were subsequently applied to the target responses for improving the resolution, and the corresponding performance was thereby analyzed.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Information Technology
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• v.16 no.12
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• pp.93-100
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• 2018

Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar(ISAR) image is 2-dimensional radar cross section distributions of a target. For target approaching along radar's line of sight(LOS), the bistatic ISAR can compensate for the weakness of the monostatic ISAR which can not obtain the vertical resolution of the image. However, bistatic ISAR have longer processing times and variability in scattering mechanisms than monostatic ISAR, so target identification using only bistatic ISAR images can be inefficient. Therefore, this paper analyzes target identification performance using monostatic and bistatic ISAR images of targets approaching along radar's LOS and proposes a method of target identification through fusion of two radars. Simulation results demonstrate that identification performance through fusion is more efficient than identification performance using only monostatic, bistatic ISAR images.

• Journal of Space Technology and Applications
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.33-40
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• 2021

Based on the requirements of a total weight of 42 kg or less, the NEXTSat-2 SAR (synthetic aperture radar) system was developed. As the NEXTSat-2 is a small-sized satellite, the SAR system was designed to account for about 40% of the dry mass of the payload relative to the total mass. Among the major components of the SAR system - which are an antenna, an RF transceiver, a baseband signal processor, and a power unit - a part with a particularly large dry mass is the antenna, the core of the SAR system. Whereas various selections are possible in consideration of gain and efficiency when designing the antenna, the micro-strip patch array antenna was adopted by reflecting the dry mass, power, and resolution required by the NEXTSat-2 project. In order to meet the mission requirement of the NEXTSat-2, the antenna was developed with a frequency of 9.65 GHz, a gain of 42.7 dBi, and a return loss of -15 dB. The performance of the antenna was verified by conducting a field test onboard the vehicle.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.16 no.6 s.97
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• pp.615-621
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• 2005

In this paper, a model for simulating synthetic aperture radar(SAR) images of earth surfaces. The earth surfaces include forest area, rice crop field, other agricultural fields, grass field, road, and water surface. At first, the backscattering models are developed for bare soil surfaces, water surfaces, short vegetation fields such as rice fields and grass field, other agriculture areas, and forest areas. Then, the SAR images are generated from the digital elevation model(DEM) and digital terrain map. The DTM includes ten parameters, such as soil moisture, surface roughness, canopy height, leaf width, leaf length, leaf density, branch length, branch density, trunk length, and trunk density, if applicable. The scattering models are verified with measurements, and applied to generate an SAR image for an area.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.83-92
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• 2018

Using ground moving target indicators equipped with synthetic aperture radars for locating moving targets within a wide background clutter in a short time is an excellent method for monitoring traffic. Although the displaced phase center antenna (DPCA) technique and along track interferometry (ATI) are real time methods with low computational complexity, they are essential for reducing cases of false alarm that can result in poor performance. In this paper, we propose two detection methods using DPCA and ATI-the parallel fusion method and serial fusion method. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed detection methods are characterized by low probability of false alarm along with good performance. In particular, the serial fusion method possesses high detection probability along with low probability of false alarm (1/5th of the false alarm probability of the DPCA technique).

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.183-194
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• 2011

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is widely used because of high resolution imaging capability in all weather and day/night condition. In this paper development of Spotlight SAR simulator is proposed for image quality analysis. Proposed SAR simulator is based on the SAR system design parameters so that SAR image performance can be expected which is essential throughout the full system development procedure from the initial concept design stage to the final in-flight calibration and validation stage. The raw data of ideal point target is first generated by taking account of the flight and imaging geometry and the various SAR system design parameters, and the Spotlight image formation algorithm is implemented in order to obtain the point target response. Finally the image quality of the generated raw data is analyzed in terms of spatial resolution, peak to sidelobe ratio and integrated sidelobe ratio.

• Journal of Space Technology and Applications
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.268-281
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• 2021

Recently, the synthetic aperture radar (SAR) has been increasingly in demand due to its advantage of being able to observe desired points regardless of time and weather. To utilize SAR data, first of all, many pre-processing such as satellite orbit correction, radiometric calibration, multi-looking, and geocoding are required. For analysis of SAR imagery such as object detection, change detection, and DEM(Digital Elevation Model), additional processings are needed. These pre-processing and additional processes are very complex and require a lot of time and computational resources. In order to handle the SAR images easily, the institutions that use SAR images develop analysis tools and provide users. This paper introduces the function and characteristics of representative SAR imagery analysis tools.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.270-279
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• 2005

Under the research project supported by Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), we have conducted the development of GPR systems for landmine detection. Until 2005, we have finished development of two prototype GPR systems, namely ALIS (Advanced Landmine Imaging System) and SAR-GPR (Synthetic Aperture Radar-Ground Penetrating Radar). ALIS is a novel landmine detection sensor system combined with a metal detector and GPR. This is a hand-held equipment, which has a sensor position tracking system, and can visualize the sensor output in real time. In order to achieve the sensor tracking system, ALIS needs only one CCD camera attached on the sensor handle. The CCD image is superimposed with the GPR and metal detector signal, and the detection and identification of buried targets is quite easy and reliable. Field evaluation test of ALIS was conducted in December 2004 in Afghanistan, and we demonstrated that it can detect buried antipersonnel landmines, and can also discriminate metal fragments from landmines. SAR-GPR (Synthetic Aperture Radar-Ground Penetrating Radar) is a machine mounted sensor system composed of B GPR and a metal detector. The GPR employs an array antenna for advanced signal processing for better subsurface imaging. SAR-GPR combined with synthetic aperture radar algorithm, can suppress clutter and can image buried objects in strongly inhomogeneous material. SAR-GPR is a stepped frequency radar system, whose RF component is a newly developed compact vector network analyzers. The size of the system is 30cm x 30cm x 30 cm, composed from six Vivaldi antennas and three vector network analyzers. The weight of the system is 17 kg, and it can be mounted on a robotic arm on a small unmanned vehicle. The field test of this system was carried out in March 2005 in Japan.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea TC
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.44-51
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• 2001

In general, the realization of spaceborne system is constrained by its space environment. In this paper, we suggest chirp stitching technique which generates and processes wideband radar signal with minimum hardware, design and implement transmit/receive equipments and operating programs to satisfy the requirement of this spaceborne high resolution SAR(Synthetic Aperture Radar). We apply the top down design approach to this system, and divide hardware into equipment, module and circuit levels, and software into SR(Software Requirement), AD(Architecture Design), DD(Detailed Design) and coding levels, and then extract each requirement to satisfy the wideband requirement of this spaceborne high resolution SAR. We, at first, test the hardware functions, confirm the wideband handling capability of this system with 85MHz wideband signals generated from two 42.5MHz narrow band signals, and show that this system can be used in spaceborne high resolution SARs.