Synthetic Aperture Radiometer Systems

Aperture synthesis is a new technology for passive microwave remote sensing from space which has the potential to overcome the limitations set in the past by antenna size. This is an interferometric technique in which pairs of small antennas and signal processing are used to obtain the resolution of a single large antenna. The technique has been demonstrated successfully at L-band with the aircraft prototype instrument, ESTAR. Proposals have been submitted to demonstrate this technology in space (HYDROSTAR and MIRAS).