News Releases

June 2008

ONERA’s SAR radar imagery presented at the Salon-de-Provence Onera Center

During a meeting of international experts at ONERA’s Salon-de-Provence Centre, our specialists in SAR imagery presented their three on-board platforms for ground observation.

On April 3rd, 2008, at ONERA’s Salon-de-Provence Centre located at Air base 701 of the Air Academy, the Electromagnetism and Radar Department brought together a panel of national and international experts for its annual scientific evaluation. This year, stress was laid on one of its specialities: SAR imagery.

SAR - Synthetic Aperture Radar - is a radar technique for airborne imaging. SAR uses heavy data processing and provides high-resolution images of the ground, both during the day and at night, with or without cloud cover. Moreover, these images can supplement visible images by indicating the state of crop maturity, by detecting motion or objects under vegetation, etc.

2008 is a pivotal year for SAR imagery at ONERA: the Ramses platform, a veritable flying laboratory, is to be suspended because the Transall that accommodates it has come to the end of its lifetime. It is to be replaced by Sethi, a system with modular architecture, developed over 4 years at ONERA. The Sethi concept is based on the installation of two nacelles - or pods - which can hold four radar sensors and two optical sensors, under the wings of a Falcon 20. It is a new, compact, quickly operational and thoroughly original means of observing the Earth: it brings together all the benefits of SAR imagery and facilitates the testing of new sensors with its plug and play adaptability.

Lastly, ONERA, with Sagem, is using an airborne platform, the Busard, to validate the sensor systems (including SAR imagery) that will equip the drones of the future.

Captions:

•  top, interior of the Transall equipped with Ramses
• middle, one of the two pods used for the Sethi imagery, under the wing of a Falcon 20.
• bottom: the wing of the Busard power glider, under which a nacelle instrumented with sensors has been mounted.

 

 

Last Update: 13 June, 2008 - © ONERA 2009 - Terms of use