# Experimental Synthetic Aperture Radar with Dynamic Metasurfaces

## TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a novel dynamic metasurface antenna for SAR imaging, capable of high-quality 2D and 3D imaging across multiple modes, offering a flexible and integrated alternative to traditional antennas.

## Contribution

It introduces a dynamically tunable metasurface antenna for SAR, enabling versatile imaging modes and comparable image quality to conventional systems.

## Key findings

- Achieved high-quality 2D and 3D SAR imaging with the metasurface antenna.
- Demonstrated operation in multiple SAR modes including spotlight and stripmap.
- Showed the metasurface's potential for future flexible SAR platforms.

## Abstract

We investigate the use of a dynamic metasurface as the transmitting antenna for a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging system. The dynamic metasurface consists of a one-dimensional microstrip waveguide with complementary electric resonator (cELC) elements patterned into the upper conductor. Integrated into each of the cELCs are two diodes that can be used to shift each cELC resonance out of band with an applied voltage. The aperture is designed to operate at K band frequencies (17.5 to 20.3 GHz), with a bandwidth of 2.8 GHz. We experimentally demonstrate imaging with a fabricated metasurface aperture using existing SAR modalities, showing image quality comparable to traditional antennas. The agility of this aperture allows it to operate in spotlight and stripmap SAR modes, as well as in a third modality inspired by computational imaging strategies. We describe its operation in detail, demonstrate high-quality imaging in both 2D and 3D, and examine various trade-offs governing the integration of dynamic metasurfaces in future SAR imaging platforms.