2025-09-05, 11:00–12:00 (Europe/Amsterdam), HugoTECH
Spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radar systems are an important component of our Earth Observation space infrastructure. This tutorial will guide the students through the main parameters that define a SAR system (antenna dimensions, available average power, etc.) and link them to the key performance indicators (radiometric sensitivity, spatial resolution, ambiguities, etc).
While users of Synthetic Aperture Radar data can often get away with ignoring how the data is generated, there are many cases in which a fundamental understanding of the trade-offs involved in the design or operation of a SAR system are relevant. This tutorial will
- Introduce the concept of a Synthetic Aperture Radar
- Discuss the relevant performance indicators, some more general like spatial resolution or image size, and some more SAR specific, such as the noise equivalent sigma zero (NESZ) or how well ambiguities are suppressed.
- Link these performance indicators to fundamental system parameters, such as antenna dimensions and available power.
The students will work with a Python notebook to explore interactively how changing system design (or processing) parameters impacts the imaging performance.
Paco Lopez-Dekker ( was born in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, in 1972. He received the Ingeniero degree in telecommunication engineering from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), Barcelona, Spain, in 1997, the M.S. degree in electrical and computer engineering from the University of California at Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA, in 1998, under the Balsells Fellowship, and the Ph.D. degree from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, USA, in 2003, with a focus on clear-air imaging radar systems to study the atmospheric boundary layer.,In 2003, he joined Starlab Barcelona, Barcelona, where he was involved in the development of GNSS-R sensors and techniques. From 2004 to 2006, he was a Visiting Professor with the Department of Telecommunications and Systems Engineering, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, where he taught courses on signals and systems, signal processing, communications systems and radiation, and guided waves. From 2009 to 2016, he led the SAR Missions Group, Microwaves and Radar Institute, German Aerospace Center, Weßling, Germany, with a focus on the study of future synthetic aperture radar (SAR) missions, including the development of novel mission concepts and detailed mission performance analyses. He has been a faculty member at the Geoscience and Remote Sensing Department, Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Delft University of Technology. Since March 2025 he is Professor in Radar Satellite Systems and Earth System Observation. He was the lead proposer and currently principal investigator of the Harmony mission, ESA's 10th Earth Explorer Mission, which is expected to be launched towards the end of 2029.