In order to satisfy the increasing demand for ocean surveillance, the spaceborne SAR system should have the capacity of High Resolution and Wide Swath (HRWS). The HRWS spaceborne SAR system can not only obtain the ocean environment parameters (such as current, wave, wide speed and direction and internal wave), but also extract a variety of target information (such as ships, oil spills and sea ice) on the surface of the sea. Therefore, the HRWS spaceborne SAR system plays an important role in the national economic development and the national defense construction. This paper reviews the applications of the spaceborne SAR system in ocean surveillance and the key techniques of the spaceborne SAR system for ocean surveillance. Finally, a possible HRWS SAR satellite constellation is designed, which can meet the demand of ocean surveillance in the future.

spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR)  /  high resolution wide swath  /  ocean surveillance