An Improved Ground Moving Target Parameter Estimation and Imaging Method for Multichannel High Resolution SAR

Abstract

With increasing demands from both military and civilian applications, ground moving-target imaging is becoming one of the important research topics for high-resolution SAR systems. However, the existing moving-target imaging methods are not suitable for high-resolution SAR because of their low parameter estimation accuracy and high computational complexity. To solve the problem, an improved ground moving-target parameter estimation and imaging method is proposed. First, the third-order phase model of the uniformly accelerated target signal is constructed, and the Hough transform and the second-order Keystone transform (SOKT) are used to correct the range cell migration into one range cell to achieve target coherent accumulation. Secondly, a delayed cross-correlation function (DCCF) is constructed to reduce the order of the range migration phase response in the slow time domain, and the coupling degree between the cross-correlation peak position and the range migration is reduced, so that the obtained DCCF has a higher gain, which ensures the accuracy of parameter estimation. Parameter estimation is simplified to peak detection by the Shift-And-Correlation (SAC) algorithm and two-dimensional Fourier transform (2D-FFT), avoiding parameter search. Compared with the existing methods, the proposed method has better focusing effect and lower computational complexity. Finally, simulation and measured data are given to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Keywords

• Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR)
• ground moving-target imaging
• Hough transform
• second-order Keystone (SOKT)
• Shift-And-Correlation (SAC)