synthetic-aperture radar

synthetic-aperture radar

[sin′thed·ik ¦ap·ə·chər ′rā‚där] (engineering) A radar system in which an aircraft moving along a very straight path emits microwave pulses continuously at a frequency constant enough to be coherent for a period during which the aircraft may have traveled about 1 kilometer; all echoes returned during this period can then be processed as if a single antenna as long as the flight path had been used.