A transputer based implementation of a quick look processor for an airborne SAR system

The purpose of this thesis is to describe the development of a transputer based real-time Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) processor called the Quick Look Processor (QLP). The QLP is required to produce medium resolution, real-time images at a wavelength of 2.5m for the airborne South African SAR (SASAR) system which is under development at the University of Cape Town (UCT). The required azimuth resolution for the QLP is 30m and system is required to process 2048 range bins at a rate of 39 range lines per second. The algorithm used was developed at UCT, and works on the principle of dividing up the synthetic aperture into subapertures with appropriate phase corrections. This method is used in order to reduce computational loading (for real-time processing), but at the same time achieve medium resolution processing. One of the fundamental issues concerning this algorithm is its efficiency as the required azimuth resolution is increased. The system is designed around a host PC and a network of nine transputers. The host PC communicates with the other SASAR subsystems via an Ethernet network. It is responsible for displaying and saving the SAR image, receiving and displaying geocoding information and configuring the transputer network. The transputer network is responsible for processing the SAR data. The network is connected in a pipeline configuration with a master transputer controlling the other eight slave transputers. Each slave transputer concurrently processes a section of the swath width. This method allows for easy scalability.

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Department of Electrical Engineering

Year dc:date.issued

1997

Author dc:creator

• Archer, Paul John

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Inggs, Michael

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/9474

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/9474