The Application of NLFM Waveform in SAR

Along with the advancement of high-resolution radar satellites for global all-round environmental monitoring, round-the-clock and all-weather surveillance has become a vibrant and expanding research area. However, in all cases, these applications demand that radar be equipped with a high-efficiency radar module (e.g., T/R module), and substantial system transmission power. Such requirements might impose a crucial constraint on the performance of a high-power radar satellite. In contrast to the linear frequency modulation (LFM) waveform, the nonlinear frequency modulation (NLFM) waveform exhibits lower sidelobes without sacrificing the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), which can notably alleviate the constraint of extremely limited satellite power. In this chapter, we employ the NLFM waveform to synthetic aperture radar (SAR) system.