High-Resolution SAR Imaging of Ground Moving Targets Based on the Equivalent Range Equation

Abstract

In this letter, a novel ground moving target imaging algorithm suitable for high-resolution synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is proposed. The key step of the proposed algorithm is to make a moving target equivalent to a static one based on the derived equivalent range equation. Due to such equivalence, the commonly used standard algorithms for stationary scene imaging (e.g., the range Doppler algorithm) can be easily adapted to focus moving targets by adding only a search operation. The proposed algorithm does not make any approximation to the range equation and is thus rather suitable for high-resolution imaging of moving targets. In addition, due to the used equivalence, to focus a slow-moving target with four unknown parameters (two motion parameters plus two position parameters), the dimensionality of the parameter search space is reduced to one. Experimental results of the simulated data validate the proposed algorithm.