An Introduction to the Functionality of the ISAR Radar

There are many types of sensors to sense or analyze most any type of environment, environmental conditions, or even targets that are of interest. Radar, which is only the broad definition, is a remote sensor. Many different types of radar are in use. ISAR radar is in use by the U.S. Navy and the Coast Guard. The ISAR radar was first realized in the early 1970s and, even after almost thirty years of existence, there isnt one book that has explained the fundamentals of ISAR radar. There have been many articles in the trade journals about ISAR and how to improve the radar. Someone new to the field would have to go through the many articles on ISAR and the many articles and books on SAR. Even though ISAR is very signal processing oriented, this report is not. The purpose of this report is to introduce some of the basic principles of the ISAR radar and how it works. Some explanation of the type of information a trained individual can exploit from an ISAR image is also included.