Knowledge‐aided mono‐pulse forward‐looking imaging for airborne radar by exploiting the antenna pattern information

Abstract

A knowledge‐aided mono‐pulse forward‐looking imaging algorithm to enhance the performance of airborne radar is proposed. Firstly, the ideal mono‐pulse imaging model based on the dual‐channel radar system is analysed and the mismatch model of the receiving channel is constructed. Then the mismatch phase error and a modified mono‐pulse curve (MPC) are derived based on the least square (LS) method by taking advantage of a prior antenna pattern information. Finally, the modified MPC is utilised to perform the direction‐of‐arrival (DOA) estimation of each scattering centres in mono‐pulse imaging. Real airborne radar data experiments are given to verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.