Estimation of the total rotational velocity of a non‐cooperative target with a high cross‐range resolution three‐dimensional interferometric inverse synthetic aperture radar system

Abstract

This study reports on a novel technique for the estimation of the target total rotational velocity of a non‐cooperative target. The technique makes use of the second‐order local polynomial Fourier transform to estimate the hitherto unknown component of the velocity vector in the radar line‐of‐sight direction, and three‐dimensional (3D) interferometric inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) imaging the target. The aspect‐independent 3D size and shape of a target – an important metric for automatic target recognition – can thus be estimated. Cross‐range focus in the component 2D ISAR images is also improved in the process. Results obtained from extensive simulations demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approach.