SBIR PHASE I: A Subsurface Volume Imaging Radar for Polar Region Ice Studies

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9560637 Langlois This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I Project describes remote sensing of the physical properties of earth's surface and subsurface with radar systems. It is of generic interest to the geophysical science community and is important to a wide range of military and commercial applications. Recently, an experimental radar was used by researchers from the University of Kansas to map the thickness of the Jacobshavn glacier in Greenland. This radar produced high range resolution measurements of ice thickness but suffered from very coarse cross-track resolution. This proposal describes a novel nadir-looking imaging radar system that can provide three-dimension volume images of the structure and depth of glaciers and icebergs to depths of several km. by utilizing a conformal array of many antenna elements mounted on the underside of an aircraft wing, we can employ digital beamforming techniques to generate up to 40 beams in the cross-track direction, each with a narrow 1.4 to 3 degree beamwidth. Along track resolution will be achieved by unfocused SAR processing. The resultant volume images generated by this radar will have spatial resolution on the order of 30m x 30m x 30m at ranges of 1 to 2 km, sampled from the top surface down to ground level several km below the surface. Potential commercial applications include surveying ice in polar regions, as well as subsurface imaging of metallic objects, hazardous waste, tunnels, and detection of hard targets through foliage.