dAn on-board real-time SAR processor for small platforms

A multiprocessor board for SAR raw data processing is presented. It has been designed especially for application on small platforms, e.g. UAVs. The challenges were to provide high processing power for real-time processing of SAR raw data on a small printed circuit board with low power consumption. These constraints can be met by a digital signal processor (DSP) like the HiPAR-DSP 16, which has been developed at the Laboratorium fur Informationstechnologie. The multiprocessor board of the size of 230x160x20mm(3) is equipped with six HiPAR-DSP 16 and has a maximum power consumption of less than 15 W. For generation of SAR images the wk algorithm has been selected. It has been implemented for the HiPAR-DSP 16 and mapped to the multiprocessor board. Each HiPAR-DSP 16 receives one set of rangelines and returns the image data. A demonstration system emulates exactly the timing of the SAR sensor. In this way the multiprocessor board works in a real environment. The SAR images generated by the multiprocessor board can be stored and displayed. The resulting images have been compared to images generated by the reference code.