HOMARDS: an airborne Ka-band radar sensor for supporting future satellite missions
Résumé
The aim of this paper is to describe the architecture of a new radar sensor: HOMARDS (Hydro-Ocean Measurements: an Agile RaDar System). This airborne Ka-band radar sensor is designed for supporting future satellite missions dedicated to the water monitoring. Based on CNES (Centre National d'Études Spatiales) and IFREMER (Institut Français de Recherche pour l'Exploitation de la MER) requirements, the first concept for which HOMARDS is designed concerns the ocean Doppler measurements on high local incidence angle conditions. Therefore, the paper discusses on the radar characteristics which meet the measurement requirements. We entirely describe the system from the antenna to the acquisition devices. Moreover, some quantitative aspects are addressed in case of embedding HOMARDS on our airborne platform named as PIMA (Plateforme d'Ingénierie Multimodale Aéroportée). © 2023 European Microwave Association (EuMA).