Three-Dimensional Ground-Based SAR Imaging Algorithm Based on Keystone Formatting and Subblock

Abstract

Three-dimensional (3D) ground-based synthetic aperture radar (GB-SAR) draws attention because of the ability to obtain high accuracy 3D information of the monitoring terrain. Besides, the 3D GB-SAR system is welcome due to the flexibility and large coverage in angle and range. However, existing 3D imaging algorithms for GB-SAR data focusing have limits of high computational complexity or narrow applicable scope. To realize 3D displacement monitoring with high spatial resolution and short revisit time, in this paper, a novel 3D imaging algorithm is proposed. Based on characteristics of the model of echo data from the large range and wide-view angle scenario, the proposed method uses keystone formatting to complete range migration correction and subblocks dechirping to realize horizontal focus. With the method, the reflectivity of the monitoring scenario is obtained by only one time of linear interpolation and several times of fast Fourier transforms. The main advantages of this algorithm are high imaging precision and low computational cost, and in addition, it is applicable for large illuminating coverage including the near-field and the far-field of the radar aperture. The imaging results are sampled on pseudo-spherical grid, aiming to simplify the formulation. Finally, this method is extensively validated with simulations.

Keywords

• Synthetic aperture radar (SAR)
• ground-based SAR (GB-SAR)
• three-dimensional (3D) imaging algorithm
• keystone formatting
• subblocks