Point Target Simulation Research Articles

Reference Target Correction Based on Point-Target SAR Simulation

The backscattering from man-made point targets like passive corner reflectors and active transponders is often used as a radiometric calibration standard for synthetic aperture radar (SAR) calibration. As new systems emerge and the demand for more accurate systems increases, it becomes necessary to better understand the effects of real or imperfect targets on the radiometric calibration results. Therefore, a point-target SAR simulator is presented which models the complete external radiometric calibration process. It incorporates a number of target properties like frequency response, transponder internal calibration strategies, noise, and interference signals, and it takes the instrument SAR mode settings into consideration. Thereby, the relevant target backscatter variation as observed in the processed SAR image with respect to an ideal or any other target can be determined. The simulation results are relevant during the design process of a new target as well as during the actual calibration of a SAR system. Based on these point-target simulations, correction coefficients can be stated for each target and SAR mode, therefore decreasing the remaining radiometric point-target uncertainties. The quantitative examples in this paper show that these corrections can influence the absolute radiometric calibration by more than 1 dB.

MODIFIED WAVENUMBER DOMAIN ALGORITHM FOR THREE-DIMENSIONAL MILLIMETER-WAVE IMAGING

Millimeter-wave (MMW) imaging techniques have been used for the detection of concealed weapons and contraband carried on personnel at airports and other secure locations. The combination of frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) technology and MMW imaging techniques should lead to compact, light-weight, and low-cost systems which are especially suitable for security and detection application. However, the long signal duration time leads to the failure of the conventional stop-and-go approximation of the pulsed system. Therefore, the motion within the signal duration time needs to be taken into account. Analytical three- dimensional (3-D) backscattered signal model, without using the stop-and-go approximation, is developed in this paper. Then, a wavenumber domain algorithm, with motion compensation, is presented. In addition, conventional wavenumber domain methods use Stolt interpolation to obtain uniform wavenumber samples and compute the fast Fourier transform (FFT). This paper uses the 3- D nonuniform fast Fourier transform (NUFFT) instead of the Stolt interpolation and FFT. The NUFFT-based method is much faster than the Stolt interpolation-based method. Finally, point target simulations are performed to verify the algorithm.

Space-Variant Filtering for Wavefront Curvature Correction in Polar Formatted Bistatic SAR Image

An analytical expression of the phase error from wavefront curvature in bistatic spotlight-mode synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image reconstructed via polar format algorithm (PFA) is derived in this paper. The wavefront curvature effect, which arises from the unrealistic planar wavefront assumption in bistatic PFA, induces phase error terms resulting in space-variant geometry distortion and defocusing. Based on the analytical expression of the wavefront curvature error, a space-variant filtering approach is applied to compensate for it in the polar formatted bistatic SAR image. Analysis on the scene size limit after using the correction method indicates that the derived space-variant filter is capable of extending the focused scene size of bistatic PFA considerably. Point target (PT) simulation validates the approach.

A 3D TARGET IMAGING ALGORITHM BASED ON TWO-PASS CIRCULAR SAR OBSERVATIONS

In circular synthetic aperture radar (CSAR), the radar collects data over a circular not a linear trajectory. The two-dimensional (2D) CSAR image also contains three-dimensional (3D) information about the target. In this paper, we propose an imaging algorithm for 3D target reconstruction with two-pass CSAR observations so as to overcome the problem of limited azimuthal persistence for real anisotropic targets, and avoid the assumption that target falls into the same resolution cell for each elevation pass when multi-pass observations are used. In the algorithm, the first step is to divide both of the two full-aperture CSAR data into subapertures in the same way; the second step is to obtain, for each subaperture, the height of target according to the established relationship between the pixel displacements in the image pair of two observations on the same focal plane and the pixel displacements in the image pair of one observation on two different focal planes; the third step is to obtain the 3D target coordinates based on the retrieved height information and the 2D image coordinates; the last step is to get the final 3D image by combining the obtained 3D images of all subapertures. The results of point target simulation indicate that the 3D information (both amplitudes and positions) are well reconstructed. At the same time, the processing results of backhoe data simulated by the Xpatch software show that the outline of the 3D structure is also well reconstructed although the available data corresponding to the depressing angles are not as good as expected.

Stripmap SAR 신호처리를 위한 PGA 적용 기법

SAR(Synthetic Aperture Radar) 영상의 화질을 개선하기 위한 autofocus 기법 중에 대표적 인 것이 PGA(Phase Gradient Autofocus) 이다. PGA는 고차항 위상 오차를 추정할 수 있으며 잡음이 많은 환경에 강인성을 가지는 장점이 있지만, spotlight 모드에 최적화 되어있는 기법으로 stripmap 모드에서 사용하기에는 부적합하다는 단점이 있다. 본 논문에서는 PGA를 stripmap 모드에서 적용한 기법을 소개하고, PGA 성능에 많은 영향을 미치는 ROI(Region of Interest) 선정 방식을 제시하였다. 또한 제안된 기법은 먼저 점표적 시뮬레이션을 통해 검증되었고, 최종적으로 이를 실제 비행 시험을 통해 획득한 SAR 원시데이터에 적용하여 SAR 영상 화질을 개선시킨 결과를 보였다. PGA(Phase Gradient Autofocus) is a representative autofocus technique to improve the SAR(Synthetic Aperture Radar) image quality. PGA can estimate high order phase errors and have good robustness in noisy environments. However, PGA is not suitable to apply to the stripmap mode data directly because it is based on the spotlight mode operation. In this paper, the PGA implementation technique for stripmap mode data and the method of ROI(Region of Interest) selection that affects severely on PGA performance have been proposed. The proposed technique was verified by the point target simulation first, and was applied to the real SAR signal data acquired by the flight test. Finally, the significant improvements in focusing quality were shown in the processed SAR images using the proposed method.

Shifting MIMO SAR System for High-Resolution Wide-Swath Imaging

A multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) system is presented for high-resolution wide-swath imaging. For a system with N transmit and N receive antennas, the proposed method using slope-varying chirp signals, azimuth beamwidth extension, and transmit antenna shift can give an increased azimuth resolution or a decreased pulse repetition frequency (PRF), which results in wider swath width, by a factor of N compared to a SAR system based on a displaced phase center antenna. To verify the proposed shifting MIMO SAR system, we carried out the point target simulations and the timing analysis which showed enhanced resolution and widened swath width performances.

EXTENDED WAVENUMBER DOMAIN ALGORITHM FOR HIGHLY SQUINTED SLIDING SPOTLIGHT SAR DATA PROCESSING

Image formation from squinted sliding spotlight synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is limited by azimuth spectral folding and severe two dimension coupling. This paper presents an Extended Wavenumber Domain Algorithm (WDA) for highly squinted sliding spotlight SAR data processing. This algorithm adopts azimuth deramping approach to overcome the azimuth spectral folding phenomenon. The chirp rate for azimuth deramping and the principle of choosing pulse repetition frequency (PRF) is presented to accommodate the characteristic of Doppler history. Subsequently, the full focusing is implemented by WDA. Instead of the conventional Stolt mapping in WDA, a modifled Stolt mapping is introduced in order to enlarge the range extension of focused image and enable to update the Doppler parameters along range. To conflrm the correctness of the implementation of modifled Stolt mapping and the azimuth position of target in focused image, related compensation terms are developed. Point target simulation results are presented to validate the efiectiveness of extended WDA to process highly squinted sliding spotlight SAR data.

Research on the Bistatic Forward-Looking SAR imaging

The bistatic Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) systems with separate transmitter and receiver antennas provide a new potential to imaging in the forward-looking geometry. Analysis of the Doppler property in this paper indicates the feasibility of Bistatic Forward-Looking (BFL) SAR imaging. Considering the different Doppler property determined by the two platforms in BFL SAR, a new 2-D point target spectrum is derived in our study. Based on the spectrum, an imaging method is chosen for the configuration, and the point target simulation validates the analysis.

Segmented motion compensation for complementary coded ultrasonic imaging

Ultrasonic imaging using complementary coded pulses offers the SNR improvements of signal coding without the filter side-lobes introduced by single-transmit codes. Tissue motion between coded pulse emissions, however, can introduce high side-lobes caused by misalignment of complementary filter outputs. This paper presents a method for filtering and motion compensation of complementary coded signals appropriate for use in medical imaging. The method is robust to the effects of non-ideal transducers on the imaging signals, includes mirrored compensation stages to reduce the impact of motion estimation error, and has been shown to reduce side-lobes to levels that compare favorably to systems using FM-coded signals of similar length and bandwidth while providing increased coding gain and range resolution. In addition, motion compensation allows the received data to be used without the frame-rate penalty usually incurred by complementary-coded imaging. The method has been verified using simulated point and speckle targets with both homogeneous and inhomogeneous motion profiles. Selected results have been verified experimentally.

The Geometric-Distortion Correction Algorithm for Circular-Scanning SAR Imaging

The image formation scheme for circular-scanning synthetic aperture radar includes generating a set of focused subimages and the followed mosaiking processing. However, due to the particular acquisition geometry and irregular motion of the radar platform, the inevitable geometric distortions in the subimages are necessary to be corrected. In this letter, a 2-D geometric-distortion correction algorithm based on projection transformation between the scatterers and the images is presented, in condition of focusing the subimages using a linear range-Doppler algorithm. The point target simulation and real circular-scanning data implementation results are provided to demonstrate the validity of the proposed method.

POLAR FORMAT ALGORITHM FOR SPOTLIGHT BISTATIC SAR WITH ARBITRARY GEOMETRY CONFIGURATION

This paper presents an efiective Polar Format Algorithm (PFA) for spotlight bistatic synthetic aperture radar (SAR) with arbitrary geometry conflguration. Nonuniform interpolation and resampling are adopted when converting raw data from polar coordinates to Cartesian coordinates according to the characteristics of raw data samples in spatial frequency space. Thus, the proposed algorithm avoids both rotation transformation and the calculation of azimuth compensation factor and thereby avoids the corresponding approximate error appeared in the conventional PFA. Meanwhile, the proposed algorithm inherits the character of decomposing 2- D interpolation to two 1-D interpolations from conventional PFA algorithm applied in monostatic SAR imaging. Therefore, the processing ∞ow, computation e-ciency and performance of the proposed algorithm are the same as those of conventional PFA for monostatic spotlight SAR. Point target simulations are provided to validate the proposed algorithm.

An Implementation of Bistatic PFA using Chirp Scaling

This paper discusses an implementation of bistatic polar format algorithm (PFA) using chirp scaling (CS). The new algorithm applies CS in the range direction to realize the range resampling, which involves only complex multiplications and FFTs. The dechirped and the chirped signals are treated separately. The new approach obtains comparable results compared with the original algorithm, however improves the efficiency significantly. Point target simulation validates the new algorithm.

Wavefront curvature correction in one stationary bistatic SAR image focused via PFA

The wavefront curvature error in one stationary bistatic synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image focused via the polar format algorithm (PFA) is analysed and a space-variant filtering method for wavefront curvature correction is proposed. The correction method presented, extends the focused scene size when using the bistatic PFA effectively. Point target simulation validates the filtering method.

A Two-Dimensional Spectrum for General Bistatic SAR Processing

This letter derives a 2-D point target spectrum for general bistatic synthetic aperture radar (SAR). For the bistatic configuration, the contributions of the transmitter and the receiver to the overall instantaneous Doppler are unequal due to the different slant range histories. In this letter, an instantaneous Doppler contribution ratio is proposed to represent the difference between the instantaneous Doppler contributions of the transmitter and the receiver, which varies with instantaneous Doppler and range frequency. Then, the 2-D spectrum is obtained by using the stationary phase principle and Taylor series expansion for general bistatic SAR. The accuracy of the spectrum is verified with a point target simulation of different general bistatic configurations.

The Application of the Principle of Chirp Scaling in Processing Stepped Chirps in Spotlight SAR

A new approach to process stepped chirps in spotlight synthetic aperture radar is presented in this letter, which is based on exploiting the principle of chirp scaling (PCS). In particular, PCS is integrated into the polar format algorithm (PFA), obtaining a more efficient solution compared with the existing polar interpolation technique. The main contribution of this letter is the implementation of azimuth scaling, in which the bandwidth synthesis is embedded. The algorithm is developed dedicatedly for dealing with stepped chirps. The signal processing flow is investigated in detail, in which no interpolations but only fast Fourier transform and complex multiplications are involved. Point-target simulation has validated the new approach and indicated that it is more efficient than the classic interpolation-based one. The achieved computational gain measured in execution time is around 25%-30%.

Robust finite impulse response beamforming applied to medical ultrasound

We previously described a beamformer architecture that replaces the single apodization weights on each receive channel with channel-unique finite impulse response (FIR) filters. The filter weights are designed to optimize the contrast resolution performance of the imaging system. Although the FIR beamformer offers significant gains in contrast resolution, the beamformer suffers from low sensitivity, and its performance rapidly degrades in the presence of noise. In this paper, a new method is presented to improve the robustness of the FIR beamformer to electronic noise as well as variation or uncertainty in the array response. A method is also described that controls the sidelobe levels of the FIR beamformer's spatial response by applying an arbitrary weighting function in the filter design algorithm. The robust FIR beamformer is analyzed using a generalized cystic resolution metric that quantifies a beamformer's clinical imaging performance as a function of cyst size and channel input SNR. Fundamental performance limits are compared between 2 robust FIR beamformers - the dynamic focus FIR (DF-FIR) beamformer and the group focus FIR (GF-FIR) beamformer - the conventional delay-and-sum (DAS) beamformer, and the spatial-matched filter (SMF) beamformer. Results from this study show that the new DF- and GF-FIR beamformers are more robust to electronic noise compared with the optimal contrast resolution FIR beamformer. Furthermore, the added robustness comes with only a slight loss in cystic resolution. Results from the generalized cystic resolution metric show that a 9-tap robust FIR beamformer outperforms the SMF and DAS beamformer until receive channel input SNR drops below -5 dB, whereas the 9-tap optimal contrast resolution beamformer's performance deteriorates around 50 dB SNR. The effects of moderate phase aberrations, characterized by an a priori root-mean-square strength of 28 ns and an a priori full-width at half-maximum correlation length of 3.6 mm, are investigate- d on the robust FIR beamformers. Full sets of robust FIR beamformer filter weights are constructed using an in silico model scanner and the L14-5/38 mm probe. Using the derived weights, a series of simulated point target and anechoic cyst B-mode images are generated to investigate further the potential increases in contrast resolution when using the robust FIR beamformers. Under the investigated conditions, the 7-tap optimal contrast resolution beamformer and the 7-tap robust beamformer with added SNR constraint increase lesion detectability by 247 and 137% compared with the conventional DAS beamformer, respectively. Finally, experimental phantom and in vivo images are produced using this novel receive architecture. The simulated and experimental images clearly show a reduction in clutter and an increase in contrast resolution compared with the conventionally beamformed images. This novel receive beamformer can be applied to any conventional ultrasound system where the system response is reasonably well characterized.

EXTENDED EXACT TRANSFER FUNCTION ALGORITHM FOR BISTATIC SAR OF TRANSLATIONAL INVARIANT CASE

This paper presents an Extended Exact Transfer Function (EETF) algorithm for Bistatic Synthetic Aperture Radar (BiSAR) imaging of a Translational Invariant (TI) case. This algorithm adopts directly the 2D transfer function of monostatic SAR (MoSAR), instead of deriving a new one, by converting the BiSAR into an equivalent MoSAR. A new azimuth phase compensation function is constructed through exploiting this equivalency. Geometry distortion correction for BiSAR imaging result is considered in the proposed algorithm. In addition, the applying condition of the algorithm is also discussed. One desirable property of the proposed algorithm is that the computing ∞ow and e-ciency are the same as ETF algorithm for MoSAR. The efiectiveness is validated by point target simulations with Tandem and forward-looking conflguration.

Squint LFMCW SAR Data Processing Using Doppler-Centroid-Dependent Frequency Scaling Algorithm

A linear frequency-modulated continuous-wave (LFMCW) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is a highly miniaturized SAR that is suitable for use on a small unmanned aerial vehicle. In squint stripmap mode, the LFMCW SAR image quality is degraded by the presence of nonlinearities in the transmitted signal, combined with the large bandwidth introduced by the frequency scaling in the nonlinear frequency scaling (NLFS) algorithm. This paper proposes an extension of the NLFS algorithm called the Doppler-centroid-dependent frequency scaling algorithm. The algorithm introduces a new Doppler-centroid-dependent scaling factor to decrease the introduced bandwidth, effectively removing the range frequency aliasing, without extra computational load. Nonlinearity correction is performed at the same time as range cell migration correction. The validity of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated with point target simulation results.

Polar format agorithm using chirp scaling for spotlight SAR image formation

A novel implementation of the polar format algorithm (PFA) using the principle of chirp scaling (PCS) for spotlight synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image formation is addressed. A PFA completely free of interpolation has been achieved in moderate squinted imaging geometry. The presented approach consists of the range and azimuth scaling of the polar samples, in which only fast Fourier transforms (FFTs) and complex vector multiplications are involved. Following different processing chains, the dechirped and the chirped SAR signals are treated separately in this paper. Relative to the classic polyphase filter that uses the long sinc kernel, the new solution is able to attain a comparable result, but is much quicker by exploiting inherent properties of the linear frequency modulated (LFM) signal. Point target simulation has validated the presented methodology.

Tomographic Imaging of a Forested Area By Airborne Multi-Baseline P-Band SAR.

In recent years, various attempts have been undertaken to obtain information about the structure of forested areas from multi-baseline synthetic aperture radar data. Tomographic processing of such data has been demonstrated for airborne L-band data but the quality of the focused tomographic images is limited by several factors. In particular, the common Fourier-based focusing methods are susceptible to irregular and sparse sampling, two problems, that are unavoidable in case of multi-pass, multi-baseline SAR data acquired by an airborne system. In this paper, a tomographic focusing method based on the time-domain back-projection algorithm is proposed, which maintains the geometric relationship between the original sensor positions and the imaged target and is therefore able to cope with irregular sampling without introducing any approximations with respect to the geometry. The tomographic focusing quality is assessed by analysing the impulse response of simulated point targets and an in-scene corner reflector. And, in particular, several tomographic slices of a volume representing a forested area are given. The respective P-band tomographic data set consisting of eleven flight tracks has been acquired by the airborne E-SAR sensor of the German Aerospace Center (DLR).