Antenna measures of merit for ultra-wide synthetic aperture radar

Abstract

This paper addresses the issue of how to characterize an antenna's performance in a SAR system-particularly in ultra-wide-bandwidth and/or ultra-wide angle (UWB/A) SAR-based on simple gain-magnitude versus frequency and angle measurements provided in data sheets. We present eight measures of merit. As illustrative examples, we compare an ideal mathematical model to measurements of an actual antenna designed to perform UWB/A SAR over up to 65-degree integration angles and over a 150- to 550-MHz frequency band.