Sparse Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar Research Articles

Sparse Aperture ISAR Imaging and Cross-Range Scaling of Maneuvering Targets Based on Sparse CICPF Method

Sparse Aperture ISAR Imaging and Cross-Range Scaling of Maneuvering Targets Based on Sparse CICPF Method

A Fast Total-Variation Driven Network for Sparse Aperture ISAR Imaging

Conventional Fourier transform-based Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar (ISAR) imaging cannot deal with the cases of incomplete radar echoes, in which the data needs to be specially processed by Sparse Aperture (SA) imaging methods. Most current SA-ISAR imaging employs sparsity-driven optimization methods. However, the assumption that the target reflectivity is sparse in the spatial domain is insufficient to capture the surface and edge features of the target if no sparse representations are found for the target and well incorporated in the imaging process. In view of the edge-preserving capability of Total Variation (TV) and the strong learning ability of the Deep Neural Network (DNN), we propose a TV-driven network to improve the SA ISAR imaging performance. We first develop a fast TV regularization method to perform the imaging where the Gradient Descent (GD) along with the Momentum Acceleration (MA) are incorporated to increase the computational efficiency. Then, we unwrap the iterative fast TV regularization into a cascaded neural network to make the key imaging parameters learnable, leading to improved imaging performance, which we refer to as FGDTV-Net. Experiments under a variety of scenarios show that the proposed FGDTV-Net for SA-ISAR imaging is superior to existing SA imaging algorithms in preserving surface and edge features and is more robust in low signal-to-noise scenarios.

A Sparse Aperture ISAR Imaging and Autofocusing Method Based on Meta-Learning Framework

A Sparse Aperture ISAR Imaging and Autofocusing Method Based on Meta-Learning Framework

Migration through Resolution Cell Correction and Sparse Aperture ISAR Imaging for Maneuvering Target Based on Whale Optimization Algorithm-Fast Iterative Shrinkage Thresholding Algorithm.

Targets faced by inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) are often non-cooperative, with target maneuvering being the main manifestation of this non-cooperation. Maneuvers cause ISAR imaging results to be severely defocused, which can create huge difficulties in target identification. In addition, as the ISAR bandwidth continues to increase, the impact of migration through resolution cells (MTRC) on imaging results becomes more significant. Target non-cooperation may also result in sparse aperture, leading to the failure of traditional ISAR imaging algorithms. Therefore, this paper proposes an algorithm to realize MTRC correction and sparse aperture ISAR imaging for maneuvering targets simultaneously named whale optimization algorithm-fast iterative shrinkage thresholding algorithm (WOA-FISTA). In this algorithm, FISTA is used to perform MTRC correction and sparse aperture ISAR imaging efficiently and WOA is adopted to estimate the rotational parameter to eliminate the effects of maneuvering on imaging results. Experimental results based on simulation and measured datasets prove that the proposed algorithm implements sparse aperture ISAR imaging and MTRC correction for maneuvering targets simultaneously. The proposed algorithm achieves better results than traditional algorithms under different signal-to-noise ratio conditions.

PIN: Sparse Aperture ISAR Imaging via Self-Supervised Learning

PIN: Sparse Aperture ISAR Imaging via Self-Supervised Learning

Fast Sparse Aperture ISAR Imaging for Maneuvering Target by CZT- and NCS-Based Approximated Observation Model

Fast Sparse Aperture ISAR Imaging for Maneuvering Target by CZT- and NCS-Based Approximated Observation Model

Novel approach for sparse aperture inverse synthetic aperture radar imaging via improved alternating direction method of multipliers algorithm

AbstractAs a new algorithm to achieve sparse aperture inverse synthetic aperture radar (SA‐ISAR) imaging, the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) suffers from selection of model parameters and the inability to discriminate the target and non‐target components. Therefore, an improved ADMM (I‐ADMM) algorithm is proposed to solve these problems. First, the particle swarm optimisation (PSO) algorithm is utilised to obtain the optimal model parameters. Aiming to adequately preserve the target's shape information in the ISAR image, a modified image entropy (IE) is proposed to be the objective function of the PSO. Then, a new regularisation function is obtained from the ADMM based ISAR image. The proposed algorithm can enhance the target components and suppress the non‐target components by utilising the regularisation function. Finally, results based on the simulated and measured data show that the proposed I‐ADMM algorithm not only achieves at least 9.4% improvement in IE but also greatly improves the image quality as visually compared with the traditional ADMM algorithm which validates the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed algorithm. [Correction added on 13/09/23, after first online publication: In the following sentence in abstract “Finally, results based on… the proposed algorithm.” 10% was changed as 9.4%.]

Joint 2-D Sparse ISAR Imaging and Autofocusing by Using 2-D-IADIANet

Compressive sensing (CS) based methods have been widely used for sparse inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) imaging. However, many CS-based methods are sensitive to the selection of model parameters, and the residual phase error of the echo also causes trouble for imaging and autofocusing. To address these problems, a novel deep learning approach, named as 2D-IADIANet, is proposed to achieve 2D sparse ISAR imaging with 2D phase error estimation in this paper. First, a 2D ISAR sparse echo model with 2D phase error into account is established, and a 2D-ADMM frame-work-based method, dubbed as 2D-IADIA, is presented to solve this compound reconstruction problem. Second, 2D-IADIA is further unfolded and mapped into a deep network form by integrating with 2D phase error compensation network. Moreover, all adjustable parameters can be learned adaptively by training the network through back propagation algorithm in complex domain directly. At last, experiment results verify that the well-learned 2D-IADIANet, which is only trained by a small amount of simulation samples, can also be generalized to measured data application. Especially, owing to the good performance of the network, the proposal has a superior reconstruction performance than 2D-IADIA under the low 2D sample rate and/or signal-to-noise ratio scenarios.

Low-Rank and Patch-Based Method for Enhanced Sparse ISAR Imaging

Due to non-ideal conditions in actual applications of inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR), some measurements are lost or the received signal is invalid for some time periods. In addition, the received signal is often affected by measurement noise. Hence, it is usually difficult to obtain well-focused images for such sparse aperture ISAR data. To solve this issue, a novel low-rank and patch-based sparse ISAR imaging method called LRPB is proposed in this paper. In LRPB, the low-rank property and structure similarity of ISAR image in 3D space are explored to ensure high-quality image reconstruction. Simultaneously, the noise is also considered in the constraint to achieve better performance. Furthermore, a Lagrange multiplier-based technique is developed to tackle the optimization problem of ISAR imaging by combining the advantages of alternating direction multiplier method. The experiment results of simulation data and real measured data verify the effectiveness of the proposed method, especially at low SNR and small number of pulses.

CVAE: An Efficient and Flexible Approach for Sparse Aperture ISAR Imaging

The use of traditional compressed sensing methods in sparse aperture inverse synthetic aperture radar (SA-ISAR) imaging suffers from high computational burdens and complicated formula derivations. To solve these problems, a complex-valued autoencoder (CVAE) architecture trained to efficiently obtain ISAR images from incomplete echoes is proposed in this letter. In addition, a training set is generated for network training via self-supervised learning. Instead of using multiple simulated scenes as a training set, multiple range cells in a simulated scene are used based on two considerations. First, reducing the complexity of the dataset allows for faster and easier training of the network. Second, it is flexible as it does not require retraining when handling scenes with various numbers of range cells. In this way, due to the properties of matrix operations, similar time complexity can be achieved in both single measurement vector (SMV) and multiple measurement vector (MMV) cases. Notably, the network can be trained using only the training set and tested on the simulated electromagnetic (EM) data and the data obtained from an operational radar system. Our experimental results validate the superiority of the proposed method in terms of better performance, better robustness to noise, and higher computational efficiency.

A reweighted matrix completion algorithm for sparse inverse synthetic aperture radar imaging

Sparse inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) imaging can be generally achieved by compressed sensing (CS) methods because sparse sampling disables the approach of conventional range Doppler. However, the CS-based methods have to convert the matrix into a vector when the random sampling is adopted, which results in huge memory usage and high computational complexity. Note that matrix completion (MC) is suitable for matrix operations, which can recover random sparse data directly based on the low-rank property of the echo matrix. In order to improve the performance of the conventional MC approaches, a novel reweighted matrix completion method for sparse ISAR imaging is proposed in this paper. To avoid using the same singular value thresholding of the traditional MC method to achieve a low-rank solution, the reweighted scheme for singular values is applied to restrain the rank. Furthermore, the weights of the current iteration are updated with their singular values obtained in the former iteration, rather than using a fixed value. Then, the alternating direction method of multipliers is utilised to alternatively optimise the proposed model, which has an improved computational efficiency. Once the full data is recovered, the ISAR image can be achieved via the conventional 2D inverse fast Fourier transform. Experimental results based on measured data validate the proposed approach that can result in improving imaging performance within several seconds, which is tens of times faster than some reported low-rank-based methods.

Joint low-rank and sparse representation for micro-Doppler effects removed inverse synthetic aperture radar imaging

In terms of the target with micromotion parts, the readability of inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) image of the main body is influenced by micro-Doppler (m-D) effects. Some facts, such as radar working modes and electromagnetic environment, may lead to sparse aperture, which further induces high side lobes and makes the removal of m-D effects more difficult. To jointly eliminate m-D effects and the interference introduced by sparse aperture, a novel m-D effects removed ISAR imaging algorithm is proposed. In this technique, sparse ISAR imaging with the removal of m-D effects can be established as an optimization model of joint low-rank and sparse representation, which is a quadruple constraint optimization problem, including the low rank of the high-resolution range profile (HRRP) of the main body, the sparsity of the HRRP of micromotion parts, the sparsity of the imaging result of the main body, and the noise constraint of the echo signal. Furthermore, the matrix factorization method is theoretically presented to simplify the optimization process of the nuclear norm, and the alternating direction method of multipliers is utilized to solve all constructed models efficiently. Experimental results based on both simulated and measured data demonstrate the superiority of the proposed algorithm.

Sparse Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar Imaging Using Structured Low-Rank Method

There has been an increasing interest in addressing the issue of high-resolution inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) imaging from sparse sampling data. Traditional compressed sensing (CS) and matrix completion (MC) methods are based on sparse and low-rank constraints, respectively, which do not make full use of the structure of ISAR data. In this article, a sparse ISAR imaging algorithm using a structured low-rank approach is proposed for enhanced imaging performance. Based on the observation that the structured Hankel matrix has better low-rank property, the proposed algorithm can outperform the group of conventional MC methods in terms of accuracy to data quality and quantity. Rather than using the traditional singular value decomposition (SVD) solution of nuclear norm minimization, the proposed algorithm restates the nuclear norm via an equivalent reformulation that the structured Hankel matrix can be decomposed into two disjointed parts to avoid the dimensional expansion of the Hankel matrix. Meanwhile, the alternative direction method of multipliers (ADMMs) is applied to effectively reduce the computational complexity. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is further validated using the experiments on simulated and measured data.

Fully Coherent Integration and Measurement of Optimized Frequency Agile Waveform for Weak Target High-Resolution ISAR Imaging

Frequency agile waveform effectively decreases interception probability and increases the anti-jamming ability for radar probing in the electromagnetic countermeasure environment. However, the transmitting agile frequency introduces jitter phases causing de-coherence of echoes, which decreases signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) accumulation gain and leads to difficult motion estimation. Therefore, stable target detection, motion parameters estimation, and inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) imaging for frequency-agile radar are still intractable problems in the low SNR environment. Aiming at these problems, we proposed a fully coherent processing method for weak target detection and ISAR imaging for frequency agile waveform in this paper. The agile waveform with low range and Doppler side lobes is designed to improve motion parameters estimation and ISAR imaging performance. Then, the joint jitter phases and motion parameters estimation based on the generalized likelihood ratio test (GLRT) is proposed to realize robust target detection and motion parameters estimation in low SNR conditions. The translational motion compensation and sparse ISAR imaging methods are also presented based on the detection and motion parameters estimation results. Finally, both simulated and real-measured data are used to verify the remarkable detection, motion parameters estimation, and ISAR imaging performance compared with the traditional non-coherent accumulation and mixture of coherent and non-coherent accumulation methods.

Enhanced sparse ISAR imaging by jointly using sparsity and low-rank properties

The sparsity characteristic, which is the foundation of the compressive sensing (CS) theory, has been widely used in the inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) imaging field. However, the performance of the traditional CS-based sparse aperture ISAR imaging method is limited in low signal to noise ratio (SNR) and/or sampling rate (SPR). Inspired by the low-rank property of the final ISAR image, a new sparse aperture ISAR imaging model by jointly using the sparse characteristic and low-rank property is proposed in this paper. Considering the effective solution of the proposed reconstruction model, the optimization problem is decomposed into several sub-problems under the framework of linearized alternating direction method with adaptive penalty (LADMAP) approach. Furthermore, in order to improve the computing efficiency of the proposed algorithm, a fast singular value decomposition (SVD) free algorithm is finally proposed. Both simulated and measured data experiments verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms, especially under the condition of low SNR and/or SPR.

AF-AMPNet: A Deep Learning Approach for Sparse Aperture ISAR Imaging and Autofocusing

Inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) imaging and autofocusing are challenging under sparse aperture (SA) conditions. Traditional imaging or autofocusing methods fail to obtain satisfying results due to the nonuniform and incomplete data caused by SA. To address this problem, a novel compressive sensing (CS)-based imaging and autofocusing framework is proposed to obtain high cross-range resolution for SA ISAR. To achieve well-focused imaging results of better performance and higher efficiency simultaneously, we merge the phase error estimation into the CS framework, then iteratively solve the compound CS problem in matrix form with approximate message-passing (AMP), dubbed as AF-AMP. Moreover, a deep learning approach is also proposed by mapping AF-AMP into a deep network, dubbed as AF-AMPNet, with extensive modifications to further improve the efficiency. The adaptively and layer-wisely optimal parameters learned by the training process are also promising to enhance the performance and robustness against noise. Besides, the loss function for training is subjoined with regularized <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\ell _{1} $ </tex-math></inline-formula> and <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\ell _{2} $ </tex-math></inline-formula> constraints to ensure the sparsity and quality of imaging results. Furthermore, the proposed AF-AMP and corresponding network-based AF-AMPNet are verified by simulated and measured experiments, both of which show superior performance, robustness, and higher efficiency than other state-of-the-art methods. AF-AMPNet can achieve the best performance in much less computational time.

A gridless sparse ISAR imaging method using atomic norm minimization based on multiple measurement vectors

ABSTRACT The atomic norm minimization (ANM) based gridless recovery approaches can completely obviate the grid mismatch problem of discrete compressed sensing methods by working directly on a continuous dictionary, which have attracted considerable interest in sparse inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) imaging. In order to exploit the joint sparsity in the multiple measurement vectors (MMV), a MMV-ANM approach for sparse ISAR imaging with stepped frequency signal is proposed in this paper. By reformulating the sparse range frequency echoes into a MMV-ANM model, the expected full echo without off-grid can be recovered at a single step by solving a semidefinite programme (SDP). Finally, the further improved ISAR imaging results can be achieved via the standard fast Fourier transform methods. The real data experiments demonstrate performance of the proposed method compared to existing gridless approaches.

Progress in radar imaging for maneuvering targets

Radar imaging is an essential technique to acquire fine structural characteristics of a target. For a maneuvering target, however, the resolution of the traditional range-Doppler-based inverse synthetic-aperture radar (ISAR) imaging decreases on both the range and azimuth directions. Along the range direction, the resolution is determined by the bandwidth of the radar, which is limited by the hardware of the radar system. In addition, the high velocity of the target can result in a stretch of the range profile, thus decreasing the resolution. Along the azimuth direction, the complex target motion produces a time-varying nonlinear Doppler frequency, which destroys the imaging conditions for ISAR and causes a reduction of the resolution. In this paper, the effects of the target complex motion on ISAR imaging are firstly presented. The process of ISAR imaging for maneuvering targets is then elaborated from the dimensions of the range and Doppler. In this regard, high-velocity compensation, multiband fusion imaging, high-order phase-error compensation, and sparse ISAR imaging are mainly presented. Several techniques of radar imaging for maneuvering targets, which could overcome some shortcomings of ISAR imaging, are then discussed, including the wave front modulation and electromagnetic vortex imaging. Finally, the current works on radar imaging for maneuvering targets are summarized, and future perspectives are discussed.

A Cooperative Task Allocation Game for Multi-Target Imaging in Radar Networks

In radar networks, research on the task allocation strategy for multi-target imaging is essential, especially under limited radar resources. From the targets' perspective, the goal is to acquire enough resources to obtain high-quality inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) images. Then there is competition among targets for radar resources. Therefore, the task allocation optimization problem is considered as a cooperative game, specifically a non-transferable coalitional game when the sparse ISAR imaging algorithm is adopted. A stable coalition structure, which allows cooperation among targets to achieve satisfactory image resolution using the least amount of time, represents an optimal task allocation scheme. Then, the corresponding algorithm based on coalition-forming rules is proposed. Through the framework of cooperative game theory, a stable network structure (i.e., the task allocation strategy) is formed while minimizing the radar time resource cost. Finally, experiments confirm that the proposed algorithm can achieve an optimal task allocation strategy with a lower computation time cost.

Micro-Doppler Effects Removed Sparse Aperture ISAR Imaging via Low-Rank and Double Sparsity Constrained ADMM and Linearized ADMM.

Inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) imaging for the target with micro-motion parts is influenced by the micro-Doppler (m-D) effects. In this case, the radar echo is generally decomposed into the components from the main body and micro-motion parts of target, respectively, to remove the m-D effects and derive a focused ISAR image of the main body. For the sparse aperture data, however, the radar echo is intentionally or occasionally under-sampled, which defocuses the ISAR image by introducing considerable interference, and deteriorates the performance of signal decomposition for the removal of m-D effects. To address this issue, this paper proposes a novel m-D effects removed sparse aperture ISAR (SA-ISAR) imaging algorithm. Note that during a short interval of ISAR imaging, the range profiles of the main body of target from different pulses are similar, resulting in a low-rank matrix of range profile sequence of main body. For the range profiles of the micro-motion parts, they either spread in different range cells or glint in a single range cell, which results in a sparse matrix of range profile sequence. From this perspective, the low-rank and sparse properties are utilized to decompose the range profiles of the main body and micro-motion parts, respectively. Moreover, the sparsity of ISAR image is also utilized as a constraint to eliminate the interference caused by sparse aperture. Hence, SA-ISAR imaging with the removal of m-D effects is modeled as a triply constrained underdetermined optimization problem. The alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) and linearized ADMM (L-ADMM) are further utilized to solve the problem with high efficiency. Experimental results based on both simulated and measured data validate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.