Inverse synthetic aperture radar phase adjustment and cross-range scaling based on sparsity

Abstract

Due to inherent sparsity of ISAR images, compressive sensing theory has been used to obtain a high resolution image. However, before applying sparse recovery methods, the phase error due to the translational motion of target is compensated by autofocusing algorithms and the target rotation rate is estimated by cross-range scaling methods. In this paper, a comprehensive matrix model for a uniformly rotating target that includes the phase error and chirp-rate of the target is derived. Then by using sparsity and minimum entropy criterion, the estimation of residual phase error and the rotation rate is refined. In order to reduce the computational load, we simplify the model and by an iterative method based on adaptive dictionary, the phase error and chirp-rate are estimated separately. Actually, by exploiting a two-dimensional (2D) optimization method and the Nelder–Mead algorithm the phase adjustment is performed and the chirp-rate is estimated by solving a 1D optimization method for dominant range cells of the target. Finally, both simulation and practical data have been used to verify the validity of the proposed approach.