Publications

This document is the final report for the 2009 Antarctica Crevasse Detection Radar (CDR) Project. This portion of the project is referred to internally as Phase 2. This is a follow on to the work done in Phase 1 reported on in [1]. Phase 2 involved the modification of a Sandia National Laboratories MiniSAR system used in Phase 1 to work with an LC-130 aircraft that operated in Antarctica in October through November of 2009. Experiments from the 2006 flights were repeated, as well as a couple new flight tests to examine the effect of colder snow and ice on the radar signatures of 'deep field' sites. This document includes discussion of the hardware development, system capabilities, and results from data collections in Antarctica during the fall of 2009.

This document is the final report for the Antarctica Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Project. The project involved the modification of a Sandia National Laboratories MiniSAR system to operate at X-band in order to assess the feasibility of an airborne radar to detect crevasses in Antarctica. This radar successfully detected known crevasses at various geometries. The best results were obtained for synthetic aperture radar resolutions of at most one foot and finer. In addition to the main goal of detecting crevasses, the radar was used to assess conops for a future operational radar. The radar scanned large areas to identify potential safe landing zones. In addition, the radar was used to investigate looking at objects on the surface and below the surface of the ice. This document includes discussion of the hardware development, system capabilities, and results from data collections in Antarctica.