Motion Compensation on Range Doppler Algorithm for Airborne SAR

Abstract

This paper studies the single step Motion compensation (MOCO) algorithm and its effectiveness in eliminating the defocusing effects on Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images. The deviation of the airborne platform from the ideal trajectory results in the distortion of the SAR data thereby defocusing the SAR images and degrading resolution. MOCO algorithms are used to correct for these platform deviations resulting in the improved focusing of degraded SAR images. This paper proposes a single step MOCO algorithm wherein SAR raw data is processed using Range-Doppler algorithm (RDA) and phase compensation is applied prior to azimuth compression. The single step MOCO algorithm proposed simplifies the ease of implementation making it more suitable for real-time SAR implementations. Effectiveness of the algorithm was validated using simulated data.