Three-dimensional SAR imaging of a ground moving target using the InISAR technique

Abstract

In this paper, a three-dimensional (3-D) interferometric synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) imaging method for moving targets is presented. This imaging method is based on the ISAR principle and the simple observation that all scatterers on a moving target move in tandem. The angular motion parameters in the cross-range directions could be estimated using the overall range profile of the moving target. Registration of the respective complex images at the two (or more) interferometric antennas can then be achieved via compensating the respective echoes at the raw data level, thus avoiding phase-unwrapping processing and image-resampling processing as required by conventional methods. Finally, a 3-D image of the moving target can then be reconstructed from the 3-D spatial coordinates of these scatterers. Furthermore, the method works well even for a target moving in heavily cluttered environments.