The HITCHHIKER project was started in 2009 at the Center for Sensor Systems with the goal to develop a passive high resolution receiver system to perform a series of bistatic experiments using the German TerraSAR-X system as illuminator and demonstrating the feasibility of high resolution bistatic imaging with a stationary receiver.
The receiver system was extended in 2010 augmenting it to a fully functional bistatic one pass interferometer to acquire high resolution DEMs on the one hand and further in 2011 the integration of a modular and flexible high bandwidth transmitter component was started to upgrade the system to a fully operational active bi- or monostatic radar sensor.
To be more flexible in choosing bistatic configurations and monostatic scenarios, the authors decided in 2012 to develop a transmitter system which completes the HITCHHIKER to a full operational radar sensor.
Meanwhile, within our project, a variety of radar receiver systems have been developed, which are used in the field of passive radar.