Method of imaging and parameter estimation for moving targets with single-channel SAR

Abstract

In general, conventional synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging algorithms focus SAR images for stationary targets. However, in the case of moving targets, the motion of the targets induces an undesired range variation which makes the obtained SAR images to be dislocated and defocused. Therefore, in this study, the authors propose a method that effectively focuses the SAR images for the moving targets and estimates their motion parameters with single-channel SAR system. The proposed method consists of the following three steps: (i) direct exploitation of the range variation from the echo signal, (ii) range cell migration compensation with the estimated range information, and (iii) Doppler compensation and parameter estimation. The simulation results demonstrate the robust performance and high computational efficiency compared to the conventional moving target imaging algorithms.