Synthetic Aperture Radar can image the Earth through cloud, smoke, darkness, and difficult weather—but understanding what a SAR image actually shows requires more than treating it like a grayscale photograph.
Synthetic Aperture Radar Explained takes you from the physics of radar echoes to the practical use of real SAR imagery, connecting electromagnetic theory, signal processing, image interpretation, advanced techniques, satellite missions, and hands-on workflows in one accessible technical guide.
Inside, you'll learn to:
• Understand how SAR actually forms an image, from microwave transmission and backscatter to the synthetic aperture, Doppler history, chirp pulses, and matched filtering.
• Master range and azimuth resolution, including pulse compression, antenna beamwidth, synthetic aperture length, PRF, and resolution-versus-swath trade-offs.
• Understand major image-formation algorithms, including Range-Doppler, Chirp Scaling, Omega-K, and back-projection.
• Interpret SAR imagery correctly, including speckle, calibrated backscatter, surface and volume scattering, and the effects of wavelength and polarization.
• Recognize geometric distortions such as foreshortening, layover, and radar shadow and understand terrain correction and geocoding.
• Explore advanced SAR techniques, including polarimetry, InSAR, DInSAR, persistent scatterer analysis, SBAS, tomography, and moving-target detection.
• Work with real-world SAR data, including preprocessing, calibration, coregistration, terrain correction, GIS integration, and processing software.
• Connect theory to applications in floods, earthquakes, volcanoes, agriculture, forestry, maritime surveillance, infrastructure monitoring, and machine learning.
The book deliberately bridges the gap between texts that focus only on signal-processing mathematics and guides that treat SAR physics as a black box.
Move beyond simply viewing SAR images—learn how they are created, what they actually measure, and how to use them with confidence.