Extracting SAR level0 data from file

[adam32]

Hello
I am working on SAR interference mitigation. I need to load a level0 (raw) SAR data in Matlab for further processing. So I downloaded some level0 datasets, including ERS and RADARSAT1 data. When I extract the downloaded archive file, there are multiple files within it, including ,metadata, .ldr and .raw files.
I don't know how to extract the SAR signal from the .raw file and load it in Matlab.
So if there is any method or tool or any procedure to extract the level0 data from the .raw file and access it in Matlab, please let me know about it
Thank you so much

[ASF-EDL - bhauer]

ERS and RADARSAT-1 data are in CEOS format. I hope these document will provide information you find helpful:

https://asf.alaska.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/ers_ceos.pdf
https://www.mathworks.com/help/radar/ug/ers-sar-raw-data-extraction-and-image-formation.html

[jhkennedy]

If you have access to Matlab's Radar Toolbox, you can follow this tutorial for working with ERS data, and should work similarly for RADARSAT-1:
https://www.mathworks.com/help/radar/ug/ers-sar-raw-data-extraction-and-image-formation.html

[4ymak]

Hey, tried to solve the same problem :) Besides the page on the matlab, this discussion and 2 documents, one of which is not really helpful, i found pretty much no information about this online. The MATLAB project, while extremely useful, is unfortunately very geared towards the ERS satellite. The specifications you`ve sent previously(https://asf.alaska.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/ers_ceos.pdf) are off for RADARSAT1. I`ve found this document(https://asf.alaska.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/r1_prod_spec.pdf) with Data Set Summaries specifically fro RADARSAT 1. I am not sure how accurate they are for datasets at ASF Data Search, but looks like RADARSAT 1 works with those specifications. Right now I am stuck with 2 problems
1)I couldn`t find the Range Gate Delay data for RADARSAT 1 in the leader file. The byte range in the CEOS RAW format specifications is empty in the RADARSAT 1 leader file and i couldn`t find it in the RADARSET 1 document. I don`t really know how satellites work, so if this number is constant for RADARSAT 1, please send me it :)
2)I couldn`t process the .raw file at all. After some tests(I combined the ESR leader file that was used, as an example in MATLAB project and the RADARSAT 1 .raw file) it looks like the problems lie in processing the leader file, though i am not sure.
If you could help me with this, I would be really grateful! Thank you for your answer in advance!

[4ymak]

UPDATE: Hey! I mostly solved the problem. Well, actually there was no problem, but nonetheless. As it turns out, I was just being stupid. Not every SAR level0 data can be translated into an image. From what I understand the RADARSAT 1 has several modes, some which create data that can`t be translated into an actual image. If you`ve encountered the same problems as me, open the .ldr file in any hex-editor and check some of the data adresses. If they are empty, obviously you won`t be able to create an image. The adress in hexadecimal is 720 + whatever your byte adress is, according to documentation, converted into hexadecimal number obviously. The only thing that remains unsolved is finding Range Gate delay to first cell for RADARSAT 1.