BalSAR: A Stratospheric Balloon-Borne SAR System

Abstract

Surveillance systems are continuously employed for both military and civilian applications, including homeland security and border protection, which are two main concerns to NATO and in particular to the Science for Peace and Security (SPS) programme. Several platforms and systems, developed in past years, have turned into surveillance systems that are currently used in such scenarios. This paper describes a high-altitude balloon-borne synthetic aperture radar (BALSAR) system, which is currently under development as part of a NATO funded project within the SPS programme. Such a system will be able to perform surveillance tasks by acquiring radar data, forming SAR images and using them to extract valuable information.