Ground Moving Target Imaging and Motion Parameter Estimation With Airborne Dual-Channel CSSAR

Abstract

This paper deals with the issue of ground moving target imaging and motion parameter estimation with an airborne dual-channel circular stripmap synthetic aperture radar (CSSAR) system. Although several methods of ground moving target motion parameter estimation have been proposed for the conventional airborne linear stripmap SAR, they cannot be applied to airborne CSSAR because the range history of a ground moving target for airborne CSSAR is different than that for airborne linear stripmap SAR. In this paper, the moving target’s range history for airborne dual-channel CSSAR and the target signal model after the displaced phase center antenna processing are derived, and a new ground moving target imaging and motion parameter estimation algorithm is developed. In this algorithm, the estimation of baseband Doppler centroid and its compensation are first performed. Then focusing is implemented in the 2-D frequency domain via phase multiplication, and the target is focused in the SAR image without azimuth displacement due to the compensation of the Doppler shift caused by its motion. Finally, the target’s motion parameters are estimated with its Doppler parameters and its position in the SAR image. Numerical simulations are conducted to validate the derived range history and the performance of the proposed algorithm.