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Sandia National Labs, the developers of the
Lynx SAR system, are developing a smaller version of a Ku band SAR,
which will maintains the Lynx's performance in a much smaller package.
MiniSAR weighs 25 lbs, (future production versions could be downsized
to 18 lbs) and fit tactical UAVs such as the RQ-7A Shadow. The whole
assembly is packed into two 7" and 10" cubes. The radar will operate
initially in the 16.7 GHz frequency and will be extensible to X or Ka
bands in the future. It is designed for affordability, and expected to
cost 1/3 of the cost of a contemporary SAR. MiniSAR offers the basic
SPOT mode with 4" resolution, and with future enhancements, will also
enable StripMap, Stereo-SAR, GMTI and CCD. When deployed on
medium-sized UAVs, MiniSAR will be able to interface with other
sensors to enable on-board multi-sensor fusion. Due to its small
dimensions, particularly the size of the antenna, the range of MiniSAR
is limited to 15km (4" resolution). When lower resolution is
acceptable, the system can generate a 12" resolution image of an area
from 23km. An even smaller antenna can provide a 4" resolution image
from a range of 5 kilometers.
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