Advantages of Radar Technology
RADAR stands for Radio Detection and Ranging and contains traditionally:
- Range finding (EDM) by means of the time a reflected signal needs to return;
- Direction measurement over the adjustment of the antenna, and recently;
- also different analysis such as SAR, polarization, Interferometry etc.
Satellites with radar technology are still relatively new compared to optical camera systems. The resolution (detail sharpness) is in principle lower, but radar has other advantages: radar is independent of illumination and weather conditions, so that acquisitions can be made at any time of the day or night and independent of cloud coverage. This contributes significantly to the reliability of the system a property that is required by many applications and users.
Early radar satellite techniques were e.g. the Altimetrie (leveling over the sea), NASA's SEASAT (launched in 1978), regulation of waves/wind or soil data. Nowadays we can measure for instance the speed of other satellites to mm/sec exactly (GRACE), and the slow deformation of volcanos. The military has used radar since the late 1930s and RADAR satellites at least since 1978.
Read more about this topic: Terra SAR-X
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