New applications of nonlinear chirp scaling in SAR data processing

Abstract

New applications of nonlinear chirp scaling (NLCS) have been found in processing monostatic and bistatic SAR data acquired in the strip-map mode. When the effects in impulse response broadenings due to quadratic range migration are negligible for short radar wavelengths, a time domain range cell migration correction (RCMC) can be applied. After the correction, the FM rates of targets confined in a range gate will differ from each other. A nonlinear chirp perturbation function can be applied to each range gate to equalize the targets' FM rates before azimuth compression. This algorithm is analyzed in the paper and is supported by point target simulation experiments.