Bistatic Polar Format Algorithm Based on NUFFT Method

Abstract

Matched filtering of phase history data is the optimum reconstruction algorithm to bistatic synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image formation. However, it comes at great computational expense scaled with complexity O (M 2 N 2), where M N is the number of pixels in the image. Based on the plane wave assumption, bistatic polar format algorithm (PFA) approximates the matched filtering kernel appropriately, so that the computational complexity in image formation is considerably reduced. In this paper, we propose a novel PFA for bistatic SAR processing. This imaging algorithm is to use non-uniform fast Fourier transform (NUFFT) to compute the matched filtering reconstruction image according the plane wave signal model of bistatic SAR, which scales with complexity O (M Nlog2 M N). Numerical simulations are performed to validate the proposed algorithm. The results prove that, compared with the direct computing of matched filtering, the presented algorithm can provide almost identical imaging performance in a relatively very short computation time.