Doppler Chirp Rate Research Articles

Imaging and Relocation for Extended Ground Moving Targets in Multichannel SAR-GMTI Systems

In a multichannel synthetic aperture radar (SAR) system, because of the target uncooperative motion, a ground moving target (GMT) is usually smeared, distorted, and shifted in an SAR image. In this article, a novel approach for multichannel SAR-GMT indication (GMTI) processing is proposed. The main innovations of this method are that a GMT can be well refocused and relocated since the target high-order Doppler parameters can be precisely estimated based on a high-order polynomial phase signal (PPS) model, and the target statistical amplitude and phase information is jointly applied to improve the radial velocity estimation robustness. Compared with the current SAR-GMTI algorithms, the improvements of this method over the existing methods are: 1) the topography interferometric phase can be effectively compensated by applying an adaptive 2-D spectrum filtering technique via iterative processing; 2) a GMT can be well imaged since the target Doppler chirp rate and the quadratic chirp rate can be well estimated via the 2-D coherent integration in the time–frequency plane; and 3) a GMT can be precisely relocated into its original position by applying the generalized amplitude and phase weighting technique. Real-measured SAR data processing results are presented to validate the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed method.

High Speed Maneuvering Platform Squint TOPS SAR Imaging Based on Local Polar Coordinate and Angular Division

This paper proposes an imaging algorithm for synthetic aperture radar (SAR) mounted on a high-speed maneuvering platform with squint terrain observation by progressive scan mode. To overcome the mismatch between range model and the signal after range walk correction, the range history is calculated in local polar format. The Doppler ambiguity is resolved by nonlinear derotation and zero-padding. The recovered signal is divided into several blocks in Doppler according to the angular division. Keystone transform is used to remove the space-variant range cell migration (RCM) components. Thus, the residual RCM terms can be compensated by a unified phase function. Frequency domain perturbation terms are introduced to correct the space-variant Doppler chirp rate term. The focusing parameters are calculated according to the scene center of each angular block and the signal of each block can be processed in parallel. The image of each block is focused in range-Doppler domain. After the geometric correction, the final focused image can be obtained by directly combined the images of all angular blocks. Simulated SAR data has verified the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.

High-Speed Maneuvering Platforms Squint Beam-Steering SAR Imaging Without Subaperture

This paper investigates the imaging problems in squint beam-steering synthetic aperture radar (SBS-SAR) mounted on high-speed platforms with constant acceleration. The cross-range-dependent range cell migration (RCM) is compensated by keystone transform (KT) and time domain RCM correction (RCMC). By derotation and phase compensation, the KT of Doppler folded signal is achieved without zero-padding. For azimuth processing, the signal is reconstructed by the nonlinear phase and range-dependent derotation. Then, the space-variant (SV) Doppler chirp rate is corrected by time domain azimuth nonlinear chirp scaling (ANCS). After frequency domain matched filtering, the full aperture signal is focused in the 2-D time domain. The algorithm is validated by simulated SAR data, including the evaluation of RCMC with KT, geometric correction, and the focusing performance.

An Accurate Imaging and Doppler Chirp Rate Estimation Algorithm for Airborne CSSAR-GMTI Systems

Airborne circular stripmap synthetic aperture radar (CSSAR)-ground moving target indication (GMTI) systems are attractive tools for air-to-ground surveillance and monitoring, because of their advantages of short revisit time and large coverage. This paper proposes an accurate imaging and Doppler chirp rate estimation algorithm for the airborne CSSAR-GMTI system with high range resolution. A key step of this algorithm is to utilize an alternation strategy to implement the correction of the target’s range cell migration and the estimation of the range equation’s quadratic coefficient alternatively. This step enables the proposed algorithm to achieve an accurate imaging and Doppler chirp rate estimation of a ground moving target. In addition, this paper presents an investigation on the accuracy of the quadratic-approximated range equation for ground moving target imaging. Numerical experiments are conducted to validate the proposed algorithm.

Refocusing and Motion Parameter Estimation for Ground Moving Targets Based on Improved Axis Rotation-Time Reversal Transform

In this paper, a new algorithm is presented to image ground moving targets and estimate their motion parameters in a synthetic aperture radar system based on improved axis rotation-time reversal transform (IAR-TRT). In this algorithm, the second-order Keystone transform) is applied to correct the range curvature, where the Doppler ambiguity caused by a fast-moving target is considered. Then, residual linear range migration and Doppler frequency migration are eliminated by IAR-TRT, which performs an improved axis rotation transform to correct the range walk and subsequently realizes the coherent integration based on time reversal transform. Finally, a ground moving target is well focused. Additionally, the proposed method has a relatively low computational complexity since the exhaustive searching for Doppler chirp rate estimation is avoided. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is validated by both simulated and real data.

A Novel Approach of Slope Detection Combined with Lv’s Distribution for Airborne SAR Imagery of Fast Moving Targets

This paper presents a fast SAR imagery algorithm for Ground Moving Target Imaging (GMTIm) based on the slope detection strategy combined with Time-Frequency Representation (TFR), which is known as Lv’s Distribution (LVD). This fast imagery algorithm focuses on the solution of the ambiguity problems and relevant heavy computing load in SAR imagery. Firstly, according to the relationship between the slope of the range walk trajectory and the cross-track velocity of moving target, a new high-efficiency slope detection strategy based on gradient and level-line angle is presented in the image domain. Then, the Doppler centroid shift induced by cross-track velocity can also be obtained. Secondly, owing to the cross-track velocity estimated before, the Range Walk Migration Correction (RWMC) can be performed to concentrate the echo response of the moving target into a single range cell. Finally, due to the superior performance in representing multi-component Linear Frequency Modulation (LFM) signal, LVD is adopted here to represent the Doppler chirp rate of multiple moving targets in a Doppler Centroid Frequency and Chirp Rate domain (CFCR). The performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated in terms of superiority and effectiveness using simulations, and the comparison between the proposed algorithm and the other conventional algorithms is also presented.

A Novel Doppler Chirp Rate and Baseline Estimation Approach in the Time Domain Based on Weighted Local Maximum-Likelihood for an MC-HRWS SAR System

In this letter, a novel estimation approach for the Doppler chirp rate and baseline in azimuth is proposed for the multichannel in azimuth high-resolution and wide-swath (HRWS) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) system. First, a range-invariant Doppler chirp rate estimation approach is developed based on a map drift algorithm and correlation function method. Then, a weighted local maximum-likelihood approach is adopted to obtain an accurate estimation of the range-variant Doppler chirp rate. With an accurate Doppler chirp rate, the baseline in azimuth can be estimated, which is developed from the correlation function between the echoes of adjective channels. The proposed approaches are successfully applied to process real five-channel HRWS SAR echo data, demonstrating the efficacy of the proposed methods.

Imaging Formation Algorithm of the Ground and Space-Borne Hybrid BiSAR Based on Parameters Estimation from Direct Signal

This paper proposes a novel image formation algorithm for the bistatic synthetic aperture radar (BiSAR) with the configuration of a noncooperative transmitter and a stationary receiver in which the traditional imaging algorithm failed because the necessary imaging parameters cannot be estimated from the limited information from the noncooperative data provider. In the new algorithm, the essential parameters for imaging, such as squint angle, Doppler centroid, and Doppler chirp-rate, will be estimated by full exploration of the recorded direct signal (direct signal is the echo from satellite to stationary receiver directly) from the transmitter. The Doppler chirp-rate is retrieved by modeling the peak phase of direct signal as a quadratic polynomial. The Doppler centroid frequency and the squint angle can be derived from the image contrast optimization. Then the range focusing, the range cell migration correction (RCMC), and the azimuth focusing are implemented by secondary range compression (SRC) and the range cell migration, respectively. At last, the proposed algorithm is validated by imaging of the BiSAR experiment configured with china YAOGAN 10 SAR as the transmitter and the receiver platform located on a building at a height of 109 m in Jiangsu province. The experiment image with geometric correction shows good accordance with local Google images.

The Space-Variant Phase-Error Matching Map-Drift Algorithm for Highly Squinted SAR

In highly squinted synthetic aperture radar (SAR) motion compensation, the map-drift (MD) algorithm cannot estimate the Doppler chirp rate accurately when the range walk is compensated in the azimuthal time domain. This problem stems from the influence of the azimuthal position-dependent (i.e., space-variant) phases, which are introduced by the compensation of the range walk in the azimuthal time domain on the Doppler chirp rate estimation. This letter proposes a space-variant phase-error matching MD algorithm that can improve the precision of estimating the Doppler chirp rate for the highly squinted SAR by removing the influence of the azimuthal position-dependent phases.

Unambiguous Radial Velocity Estimation based on Delay-Interferometry in Range Frequency Domain

Abstract To solve the problem that the estimated radial velocity of fast moving target is ambiguity in synthetic aperture radar/ground moving target indication (SAR/GMTI), an approach is proposed to estimate the radial velocity unambiguously in the paper. The method utilizes the processing of delay and interferometry in range frequency domain. After range compression and delay, the dual-channel data possess the same Doppler chirp rate. Then, interferometric processing is done in range frequency domain, obtaining the linear relationship between the interferometric phase and range frequency, with the slope containing the information of radial velocity. Since the slope is no ambiguity, radial velocity is estimated unambiguously. The maximum unambiguous radial velocity of the proposed method is also analyzed. Numerical simulations demonstrate the validity of the proposed method with high accuracy of estimation.