Ground moving target indication and parameters estimation using a dual-frequency synthetic aperture radar

Abstract

A new scheme is presented to estimate the range and azimuth velocity components of a detected moving target by using a dual-frequency synthetic aperture radar (SAR). It consists of a moving target detector, a range velocity estimator, and an azimuth velocity estimator. In this scheme, two original SAR images are achieved from the returns first, and then processed by a symmetric defocusing filter pair (SDFP) to produce two defocused images. By comparing the sharpness of the two defocused images, the moving targets are indicated and isolated form each original SAR image. For a selected moving target, its range velocity component is estimated by using a Doppler ambiguity solver and a stepped approximation-and-comparison algorithm. After range velocity compensated, the target in the patch is concentrated in less range bins, and its azimuth velocity component is estimated by using an SDFP bank. Finally, the moving target is refocused and its azimuth displacement caused by range velocity component is corrected. The effectiveness of the proposed scheme is confirmed by the experiments with the field and simulated data.