Settings for SAR Reconfigurable Approach

CAESARIS project has been conceived to answer the need of the EU Internal Security Strategy to strengthen the border security management for immigration control and fight against cross-border crime. To answer this need, CAESARIS project aims to develop an integrated security and search-and-rescue 24/7 all-weather airborne system to detect illegal border crossing with special focus on people visible and conceived under opaque layers. To provide 24/7 all weather night/day capability, CAESARIS system makes use of EO and radar systems. Market products and R&D projects can be found that provide examples of homeland security systems including airborne remote sensing technologies [1][2][3][4]. However, none of them provides an integrated system able to reconfigure itself in a context aware manner. Some theoretical studies have been carried out recently mainly from Haykin [6] and Guerci [5] that introduce the concept of cognitive systems and knowledge-based systems. The context-aware self-configuration capability offers the possibility to choose the best sensors configuration to optimize the detection and the imaging performance. In fact, according to the targets of interest, the platform motions, the land-type and the presence of opaque layers, an optimal set of parameters can be identified that maximises the system's performance. With special focus on the radar system, and specifically on SAR system, this document aims to identify the reconfigurable parameters and the factors that affect their optimization.