A Minimum-Entropy Based Residual Range Cell Migration Correction for Bistatic Forward-Looking SAR

Abstract

For bistatic forward-looking synthetic aperture radar (BFSAR), motion errors induce two adverse effects on the echo, namely, azimuth phase error and residual range cell migration (RCM). Under the presumption that residual RCM is within a range resolution cell, residual RCM can be neglected, and azimuth phase error can be compensated utilizing autofocus methods. However, in the case that residual RCM exceeds the range resolution, two-dimensional defocus would emerge in the final image. Generally speaking, residual RCM is relatively small and can be neglected in monostatic SAR, while the unique characteristics of BFSAR makes the residual RCM exceeding range resolution cell inevitable. Furthermore, the excessive residual migration is increasingly encountered as resolutions become finer. To cope with such a problem, minimum-entropy based residual RCM correction method is developed in this paper. The proposed method eliminates the necessity of the parametric model when estimating the residual RCM. Moreover, it meets the practical needs of BFSAR owing to no requirement of exhaustive computation. Simulations validate the effectiveness of the proposed method.