Modulated-ISRJ rejection using online dictionary learning for synthetic aperture radar imagery

In electromagnetic countermeasures circumstances,synthetic aperture radar(SAR)imagery usually suffers from severe quality degradation from modulated interrupt sampling repeater jamming(MISRJ),which usually owes considerable coherence with the SAR transmission waveform together with periodical modulation patterns.This paper develops an MISRJ suppression algorithm for SAR imagery with online dictionary learning.In the algorithm,the jamming modulation temporal properties are exploited with extracting and sorting MISRJ slices using fast-time autocorrelation.Online dictionary learning is followed to separate real signals from jamming slices.Under the learned representation,time-varying MISRJs are suppressed effectively.Both simulated and real-measured SAR data are also used to confirm advantages in suppressing time-varying MISRJs over traditional methods.

Ground Surface Ruptures and Near-Fault,Large-Scale Displacements Caused by the Wenchuan Ms8.0 Earthquake Derived from Pixel Offset Tracking on Synthetic Aperture Radar Images

The 12 May 2008 Wenchuan Ms8.0 earthquake produced surface displacements along the causative fault, the Yingxiu-Beichuan Fault, which are up to several meters near the fault. Because of the large gradient, satellite synthetic aperture radar （SAR） interferometric data are strongly incoherent; the usual SAR interferometry method does not allow such displacements to be measured. In the present study, we employed another approach, the technique based on pixel offset tracking, to solve this problem. The used image data of six tracks are from the Advanced Land Observing Satellite, Phased Array type L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar （ALOS/PALSAR） dataset of Japan. The results show that the entire surface rupture belt is 238 km long, extending almost linearly in a direction of 42°north-east. It is offset left laterally by a north-west-striking fault at Xiaoyudong, and turns at Gaochuan, where the rupture belt shifts toward the south by 5 km, largely keeping the original trend. In terms of the features of the rupture traces, the rupture belt can be divided into five sections and three types. Among them, the Beichuan-Chaping and Hongkou-Yingxiu sections are relatively complex, with large widths and variable traces along the trend. The Pingtong-Nanba and Qingping-Jingtang sections appear uniform, characterized by straight traces and small widths. West of Yingxiu, the rupture traces are not clear. North of the rupture belt, surface displacements are 2.95 m on average, mostly 2-3.5 m, with 7-9 m the maximum near Beichuan. South of the rupture belt, the average displacement is 1.75 m, dominated by 1-2 m, with 3-4 m at a few sites. In the north, the displacements in the radar line of sight are of subsidence, and in the south, they are uplifted, in accordance with a right-slip motion that moves the northern wall of the fault to the east, and the southern wall to the west, respectively. Along the Guanxian-Jiangyou Fault, there is a uplift zone in the radar line of sight, which is 66 km long, 1.5-6 km wide, and has vertical displacements of approximately 2 m, but no observable rupture traces.

Rapid detection to long ship wake in synthetic aperture radar satellite imagery

The maritime administrative department employs synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite remote sensing technology to obtain evidence of illegal discharge of ships. If the ship is discharged during navigation, it forms a long dark wake on the SAR image due to the suppression of the Bragg wave by the oil fi lm. This study investigates key techniques for rapid detection of long ship wakes, thereby providing law enforcement agencies with candidate ships for possible discharge. This paper presents a rapid long ship wake detection method that uses satellite imaging parameters and the axial direction of the ship in images to determine the potential detection area of the wake. Then, the threshold of long ship wake detection is determined using statistical analysis, the area is binarized, and isolated points are removed using a morphological filter operator. The method was tested with ENVISAT Synthetic Aperture Radar and GF-3 SAR data, and results showed that the method was eff ective, and the overall accuracy of the decision reaches 71%. We present two innovations;one is a method that draws a Doppler shift curve, and uses the SAR imaging parameters to determine the detection area of the long wake to achieve rapid detection and reduce the image detection area. The other is where a classical linear fitting method is used to quickly and accurately determine whether the detected dark area is a long ship wake and realizes the twisted long ship wake detection caused by the sea surface flow field, which is otherwise diffi cult to detect by the traditional Radon and Hough transform methods. This method has good suppression performance for the dark spot false alarm formed by low speed wind region or upward flow. The method is developed for maritime ship monitoring system and will promote the operational application of maritime ship monitoring system.

Wave parameters retrieval for dual-polarization C-band synthetic aperture radar using a theoretical-based algorithm under cyclonic conditions

Theoretical-based ocean wave retrieval algorithms are applied by inverting a synthetic aperture radar(SAR)intensity spectrum into a wave spectrum, that has been developed based on a SAR wave mapping mechanism. In our previous studies, it was shown that the wave retrieval algorithm, named the parameterized first-guess spectrum method(PFSM), works for C-band and X-band SAR at low to moderate sea states. In this work, we investigate the performance of the PFSM algorithm when it is applied for dual-polarization c-band sentinel-1(S-1) SAR acquired in extra wide-swath(EW) and interferometric wide-swath(IW) mode under cyclonic conditions.Strong winds are retrieved from six vertical-horizontal(VH) polarization S-1 SAR images using the c-band crosspolarization coupled-parameters ocean(C-3 PO) model and then wave parameters are obtained from the image at the vertical-vertical(VV) polarization channel. significant wave height(SWH) and mean wave period(MWP) are compared with simulations from the WAVEWATCH-III(WW3) model. The validation shows a 0.69 m root mean square error(RMSE) of SWH with a –0.01 m bias and a 0.62 s RMSE of MWP with a –0.17 s bias. Although the PFSM algorithm relies on a good quality SAR spectrum, this study confirms the applicability for wave retrieval from an S-1 SAR image. Moreover, it is found that the retrieved results have less accuracy on the right sector of cyclone eyes where swell directly affects strong wind-sea, while the PFSM algorithm works well on the left and rear sectors of cyclone eyes where the interaction of wind-sea and swell is relatively poor.

Design of synthetic aperture radar low-intercept radio frequency stealth

Not confined to a certain point,such as waveform,this paper systematically studies the low-intercept radio frequency(RF)stealth design of synthetic aperture radar(SAR)from the system level.The study is carried out from two levels.In the first level,the maximum low-intercept range equation of the conventional SAR system is deduced firstly,and then the maximum low-intercept range equation of the multiple-input multiple-output SAR system is deduced.In the second level,the waveform design and imaging method of the low-intercept RF SAR system are given and verified by simulation.Finally,the main technical characteristics of the lowintercept RF stealth SAR system are given to guide the design of low-intercept RF stealth SAR system.

Method of moving target detection based on sub-image cancellation for single-antenna airborne synthetic aperture radar

The method of moving target detection based on subimage cancellation for single-antenna airborne SAR is presented. First the subimage is obtained through frequency processing is pointed out. The imaging difference of a stationary objects and moving object in the subimage based on the frequency division is analyzed from the fundamental principle. Then the developed method combines the shear averaging algorithm to focus on the moving target in the subimage, after the clutter suppression and the focusing position in each subimage is obtained. Next the observation model and the relative movement of the moving targets between the subimages estimate the moving targets. The theoretical analysis and simulation results demonstrate that the method is effective and can not only detect the moving targets, but also estimate their motion parameters precisely.

Effect of digital elevation models on monitoring slope displacements in open-pit mine by differential interferometry synthetic aperture radar

Displacement monitoring in open-pit mines is one of the important tasks for safe management of mining processes.Differential interferometric synthetic aperture radar(DInSAR),mounted on an artificial satellite,has the potential to be a cost-effective method for monitoring surface displacements over extensive areas,such as open-pit mines.DInSAR requires the ground surface elevation data in the process of its analysis as a digital elevation model(DEM).However,since the topography of the ground surface in open-pit mines changes largely due to excavations,measurement errors can occur due to insufficient information on the elevation of mining areas.In this paper,effect of different elevation models on the accuracy of the displacement monitoring results by DInSAR is investigated at a limestone quarry.In addition,validity of the DInSAR results using an appropriate DEM is examined by comparing them with the results obtained by global positioning system(GPS)monitoring conducted for three years at the same limestone quarry.It is found that the uncertainty of DEMs induces large errors in the displacement monitoring results if the baseline length of the satellites between the master and the slave data is longer than a few hundred meters.Comparing the monitoring results of DInSAR and GPS,the root mean square error(RMSE)of the discrepancy between the two sets of results is less than 10 mm if an appropriate DEM,considering the excavation processes,is used.It is proven that DInSAR can be applied for monitoring the displacements of mine slopes with centimeter-level accuracy.

A synthetic aperture radar sea surface distribution estimation by n-order Bézier curve and its application in ship detection

To dates,most ship detection approaches for single-pol synthetic aperture radar（SAR） imagery try to ensure a constant false-alarm rate（CFAR）.A high performance ship detector relies on two key components：an accurate estimation to a sea surface distribution and a fine designed CFAR algorithm.First,a novel nonparametric sea surface distribution estimation method is developed based on n-order Bézier curve.To estimate the sea surface distribution using n-order Bézier curve,an explicit analytical solution is derived based on a least square optimization,and the optimal selection also is presented to two essential parameters,the order n of Bézier curve and the number m of sample points.Next,to validate the ship detection performance of the estimated sea surface distribution,the estimated sea surface distribution by n-order Bézier curve is combined with a cell averaging CFAR（CA-CFAR）.To eliminate the possible interfering ship targets in background window,an improved automatic censoring method is applied.Comprehensive experiments prove that in terms of sea surface estimation performance,the proposed method is as good as a traditional nonparametric Parzen window kernel method,and in most cases,outperforms two widely used parametric methods,K and G0 models.In terms of computation speed,a major advantage of the proposed estimation method is the time consuming only depended on the number m of sample points while independent of imagery size,which makes it can achieve a significant speed improvement to the Parzen window kernel method,and in some cases,it is even faster than two parametric methods.In terms of ship detection performance,the experiments show that the ship detector which constructed by the proposed sea surface distribution model and the given CA-CFAR algorithm has wide adaptability to different SAR sensors,resolutions and sea surface homogeneities and obtains a leading performance on the test dataset.

Coastal wind field retrieval from polarimetric synthetic aperture radar

Coastal winds are strongly influenced by topology and discontinuity between land and sea surfaces. Wind assessment from remote sensing in such a complex area remains a challenge. Space-borne scatterometer does not provide any information about the coastal wind field, as the coarse spatial resolution hampers the radar backscattering. Synthetic aperture radar （SAR） with a high spatial resolution and all-weather observation abilities has become one of the most important tools for ocean wind retrieval, especially in the coastal area. Conventional methods of wind field retrieval from SAR, however, require wind direction as initial information, such as the wind direction from numerical weather prediction models （NWP）, which may not match the time of SAR image acquiring. Fortunately, the polarimetric observations of SAR enable independent wind retrieval from SAR images alone. In order to accurately measure coastal wind fields, this paper proposes a new method of using co-polarization backscattering coefficients from polarimetric SAR observations up to polarimetric correlation backscattering coefficients, which are acquired from the conjugate product of co-polarization backscatter and cross-polarization backscatter. Co-polarization backscattering coefficients and polarimetric correlation backscattering coefficients are obtained form Radarsat-2 single-look complex （SLC） data.The maximum likelihood estimation is used to gain the initial results followed by the coarse spatial filtering and fine spatial filtering. Wind direction accuracy of the final inversion results is 10.67 with a wind speed accuracy of 0.32 m/s. Unlike previous methods, the methods described in this article utilize the SAR data itself to obtain the wind vectors and do not need external wind directional information. High spatial resolution and high accuracy are the most important features of the method described herein since the use of full polarimetric observations contains more information about the space measured.This article is a useful addition to the work of independent SAR wind retrieval. The experimental results herein show that it is feasible to employ the co-polarimetric backscattering coefficients and the polarimetric correlation backscattering coefficients for coastal wind field retrieval.

Resolving co- and early post-seismic slip variations of the 2021 MW 7.4 Madoi earthquake in east Bayan Har block with a block-wide distributed deformation mode from satellite synthetic aperture radar data

On 21 May 2021(UTC),an MW 7.4 earthquake jolted the east Bayan Har block in the Tibetan Plateau.The earthquake received widespread attention as it is the largest event in the Tibetan Plateau and its surroundings since the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake,and especially in proximity to the seismic gaps on the east Kunlun fault.Here we use satellite interferometric synthetic aperture radar data and subpixel offset observations along the range directions to characterize the coseismic deformation of the earthquake.Range offset displacements depict clear surface ruptures with a total length of~170 km involving two possible activated fault segments in the earthquake.Coseismic modeling results indicate that the earthquake was dominated by left-lateral strike-slip motions of up to 7 m within the top 12 km of the crust.The well-resolved slip variations are characterized by five major slip patches along strike and 64%of shallow slip deficit,suggesting a young seismogenic structure.Spatial-temporal changes of the postseismic deformation are mapped from early 6-day and 24-day InSAR observations,and are well explained by time-dependent afterslip models.Analysis of Global Navigation Satellite System(GNSS)velocity profiles and strain rates suggests that the eastward extrusion of plateau is diffusely distributed across the east Bayan Har block,but exhibits significant lateral heterogeneities,as evidenced by magnetotelluric observations.The block-wide distributed deformation of the east Bayan Har block along with the significant co-and post-seismic stress loadings from the Madoi earthquake imply high seismic risks along regional faults,especially the Tuosuo Lake and Maqên-Maqu segments of the Kunlun fault that are known as seismic gaps.

A Review on Applications of Imaging Synthetic Aperture Radar with a Special Focus on Cryospheric Studies

The cryosphere is the frozen part of the Earth’s system. Snow and ice are the main constituents of the cryosphere and may be found in different states, such as snow, freshwater ice, sea ice, perma-frost, and continental ice masses in the form of glaciers and ice sheets. The present review mainly deals with state-of-the-art applications of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) with a special emphasize on cryospheric information extraction. SAR is the most important active microwave remote sensing (RS) instrument for ice monitoring, which provides high-resolution images of the Earth’s surface. SAR is an ideal sensor in RS technology, which works in all-weather and day and night conditions to provide useful unprecedented information, especially in the cryospheric regions which are almost inaccessible areas on Earth. This paper addresses the technological evolution of SAR and its applications in studying the various components of the cryosphere. The arrival of SAR radically changed the capabilities of information extraction related to ice type, new ice formation, and ice thickness. SAR applications can be divided into two broad classes-polarimetric applications and interferometric applications. Polarimetric SAR has been effectively used for mapping calving fronts, crevasses, surface structures, sea ice, detection of icebergs, etc. The paper also summarizes both the operational and climate change research by using SAR for sea ice parameter detection. Digital elevation model (DEM) generation and glacier velocity mapping are the two most important applications used in cryosphere using SAR interferometry or interferometric SAR (InSAR). Space-borne InSAR techniques for measuring ice flow velocity and topography have developed rapidly over the last decade. InSAR is capable of measuring ice motion that has radically changed the science of glaciers and ice sheets. Measurement of temperate glacier velocities and surface characteristics by using airborne and space-borne interferometric satellite images have been the significant application in glaciology and cryospheric studies. Space-borne InSAR has contributed to major evolution in many research areas of glaciological study by measuring ice-stream flow velocity, improving understanding of ice-shelf processes, yielding velocity for flux-gate based mass-balance assessment, and mapping flow of mountain glaciers. The present review summarizes the salient development of SAR applications in cryosphere and glaciology.

The polarimetric features of oil spills in full polarimetric synthetic aperture radar images

Compared with single-polarized synthetic aperture radar （SAR） images, full polarimetric SAIl images contain not only geometrical and backward scattering characteristics, but also the polarization features of the scattering targets. Therefore, the polarimetric SAR has more advantages for oil spill detection on the sea surface. As a crucial step in the oil spill detection, a feature extraction directly influences the accuracy of oil spill discrimination. The polarimetric features of sea oil spills, such as polarimetric entropy, average scatter angle, in the full polarimetric SAR images are analyzed firstly. And a new polarimetric parameter P which reflects the proportion between Bragg and specular scattering signals is proposed. In order to investigate the capability of the polarimetric features for observing an oil spill, systematic comparisons and analyses of the multipolarization features are provided on the basis of the full polarimetric SAR images acquired by SIR-C/X-SAR and Radarsat-2. The experiment results show that in C-band SAR images the oil spills can be detected more easily than in L-band SAR images under low to moderate wind speed conditions. Moreover, it also finds that the new polarimetric parameter is sensitive to the sea surface scattering mechanisms. And the experiment results demonstrate that the new polarimetric parameter and pedestal height perform better than other polarimetric parameters for the oil spill detection in the C-band SAR images.

Synthetic Aperture Radar Raw Signals Simulation of Extended Scenes

A synthetic aperture radar (SAR) raw signal simulation algorithm for extended scenes is presented. This algorithm is based on the SAR two-dimensional system transform function (STF). To cope with range-variant nature of SAR STF and increase the speed of this algorithms, new formulas for range-variant phase corrections in range-Doppler (RD) domain are developed. In this way, many azimuth lines can be simulated with the same SAR STF. It only needs two-dimensional fast Fourier transform code and complex multiplications. Comparing with time-domain simulation algorithm, it is very simple and thus efficient. Simulation results have shown that this algorithm is accurate and efficient. Key words synthetic aperture radar - raw signal simulation - system transform function CLC number TP 751. 1 Foundation item: Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (40376051)Biography: Sun Jin-yao (1967-), female, Ph. D. candidate, research direction: SAR image simulation and 3D recover for SAR image.

Modified Omega-K algorithm for processing helicopter-borne frequency modulated continuous waveform rotating synthetic aperture radar data

With appropriate geometry configuration, helicopter- borne rotating synthetic aperture radar （ROSAR） can break through the limitations of monostatic synthetic aperture radar （SAR） on forward-looking imaging. With this capability, ROSAR has extensive potential applications, such as self-navigation and self-landing. Moreover, it has many advantages if combined with the frequency modulated continuous wave （FMCW） technology. A novel geometric configuration and an imaging algorithm for helicopter-borne FMCW-ROSAR are proposed. Firstly, by per- forming the equivalent phase center principle, the separated trans- mitting and receiving antenna system is equalized to the case of system configuration with antenna for both transmitting and receiving signals. Based on this, the accurate two-dimensional spectrum is obtained and the Doppler frequency shift effect in- duced by the continuous motion of the platform during the long pulse duration is compensated. Next, the impacts of the velocity approximation error on the imaging algorithm are analyzed in de- tail, and the system parameters selection and resolution analysis are presented. The well-focused SAR image is then obtained by using the improved Omega-K algorithm incorporating the accurate compensation method for the velocity approximation error. FJnally, correctness of the analysis and effectiveness of the proposed al- gorithm are demonstrated through simulation results.

A COMPARISON OF SOME ELECTRONIC COUNTERMEASURES ON INVERSE SYNTHETIC APERTURE RADAR (ISAR)

Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar (ISAR) is an important means for target classification, recognition, identification and many other military applications. A simulation model of ISAR system is established after analyzing the principle of ISAR imaging, and then several ECM (Electronic Counter Measurement) techniques are studied. Simulation experiments are done on the basis of such research. The experimental result of the research can be used for ECM equipment.

A New Factorized Backprojection Algorithm for Stripmap Synthetic Aperture Radar

Factorized backprojection is a processing algorithm for reconstructing images from data collected by synthetic aperture radar (SAR) systems. Factorized backprojection requires less computation than conventional time-domain backprojection with minimal loss in accuracy for straight-line motion. However, its implementation is not as straightforward as direct backprojection. This paper provides a new, easily parallelizable formulation of factorized backprojection designed for stripmap SAR data that includes a method of implementing an azimuth window as part of the factorized backprojection algorithm. We compare the performance of windowed factorized backprojection to direct backprojection for simulated and actual SAR data.

Hybrid micromotion-scattering center model for synthetic aperture radar micromotion target imaging

Micromotion is an important target feature, although the target micromotion has an unfavorable influence on the synthetic aperture radar （SAR） image interpretation due to defocusing. This paper introduces micromotion parameters into the scattering center model to obtain a hybrid micromotion-scattering center model, and then proposes an optimization algorithm based on the maximal likelihood estimation to solve the model for jointly obtaining target motion and scattering parameters. Initial value estimation methods using targets＇ ghost images are then presented to guarantee the global and fast convergence. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm especially in high precision estimation and multiple targets processing.

Monitoring cyanobacteria-dominant algal blooms in eutrophicated Taihu Lake in China with synthetic aperture radar images

Monitoring algal blooms by optical remote sensing is limited by cloud cover.In this study,synthetic aperture radar(SAR) was deployed with the aim of monitoring cyanobacteria-dominant algal blooms in Taihu Lake in cloudy weather.The study shows that dark regions in the SAR images caused by cyanobacterial blooms damped the microwave backscatter of the lake surface and were consistent with the regions of algal blooms in quasi-synchronous optical images,confirming the applicability of SAR for detection of surface blooms.Low backscatter may also be associated with other factors such as low wind speeds,resulting in interference when monitoring algal blooms using SAR data alone.After feature extraction and selection,the dark regions were classified by the support vector machine method with an overall accuracy of 67.74%.SAR can provide a reference point for monitoring cyanobacterial blooms in the lake,particularly when weather is not suitable for optical remote sensing.Multi-polarization and multi-band SAR can be considered for use in the future to obtain more accurate information regarding algal blooms from SAR data.

Mapping sea surface velocities in the Changjiang coastal zone with advanced synthetic aperture radar

Range Doppler velocities derived from the Envisat advanced synthetic aperture radar（ASAR） wide swath images are analyzed and assessed against the numerically simulated surface current fields derived from the finite volume coastal ocean model（FVCOM） for the Changjiang Estuary. Comparisons with the FVCOM simulations show that the European Space Agency（ESA） Envisat ASAR based Doppler shift anomaly retrievals have the capability to capture quantitative information of the surface currents in the Changjiang Estuary. The uncertainty analysis of the ASAR range Doppler velocity estimates are discussed with regard to the azimuthal and range bias corrections, radar incidence angles, inaccuracy in the wind field corrections and the presence of rain cells.The corrected range Doppler velocities for the Changjiang Estuary area are highly valuable as they exhibit quantitative expressions related to the multiscale upper layer dynamics and surface current variability around the East China Sea, including the Changjiang Estuary.

Micro-motion effect in inverse synthetic aperture radar imaging of ballistic mid-course targets

For ballistic mid-course targets,in addition to constant orbital motion,the target or any structure on the target undergoes micro-motion dynamics,such as spin,precession and tumbling.The micro-motion characteristics of the ballistic mid-course targets were discussed.The target motion model and inverse synthetic aperture radar(ISAR) imaging model for this kind of targets were built.Then,the influence of micro-motion on ISAR imaging based on the established imaging model was presented.The computer simulation to get mid-course target echoes from static darkroom electromagnetic scattering data based on the established target motion model was realized.The imaging results of computer simulation show the validity of ISAR imaging analysis for micro-motion targets.