IEEE SIGNAL PROCESSING MAGAZINE [69] MARCH 2010 1053-5888/10/$26.00©2010IEEE Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MSP.2009.935383 Synthetic Aperture Radar Processing with GPGPU [ Maurizio di Bisceglie, Michele Di Santo, Carmela Galdi, Riccardo Lanari, and Nadia Ranaldo ] S ynthetic aperture radar (SAR) processing is a complex task that involves advanced signal processing techniques and intense computational effort. While the first issue has now reached a mature stage, the ques- tion of how to produce accurately focused images in real time, without mainframe facilities, is still under debate. The recent introduction of general-purpose graphics processing units (GPGPUs) seems to be quite promising in this view, especially for the decreased per-core cost barrier and for the affordable programming complexity. This article focuses on methodologies with recurrent use to code examples that try to couple with the flow of the main steps of the SAR processing. The possibility to be comprehensive was prevented by the wide scenario of variations of the focusing algorithm as well as the spread of applications. The reader should look at this work as a sample of possibilities offered by this new technology and a collection of suggestions and consid- erations that may guide to new applications and horizons. INTRODUCTION The elegance of Earth’s view shown by orbiting satellites appears even inessential if compared with the formidable vol- ume of information that is gathered by such a wonderful sight. The observational capability is extended to the microwave region of the electromagnetic spectrum, where spaceborne SAR systems offer the best way to achieve fine spatial resolu- tion, long-term global coverage and short revisit time. The interest of a wider and wider community in gathering SAR data is confirmed by the increasing number of existing and recently proposed platforms (for example, see TerraSAR-X, RadarSAT-2, Cosmo-SkyMed, Palsar, Sentinel-I, and Biomass) [ Focusing on the methodologies behind the technicalities ] © PHOTO F/X2