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.

Inverse synthetic aperture radar range profile compensation of plasma-sheath-enveloped reentry object

The scattering points in a plasma sheath characterized with coupled velocities can cause pulse compression mismatching,which results in displacement and energy diffusion in the onedimension range profile.To solve this problem,we deduce the echo model of the plasma-sheathenveloped reentry object.By estimating the coupled velocities,we propose a compensation method to correct the defocus of an inverse synthetic aperture radar(ISAR)image in range dimension to improve the quality of the ISAR images.The simulation results suggest that the echoes from different regions of the surface of the reentry object have various coupling velocities,and the higher the coupled velocity,the more serious the displacement and energy diffusion in the range dimension.Our proposed method can correct the range dimension aberration.Two measurement metrics were used to evaluate the improvement of the compensation method.

Compressive Sensing Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar Imaging Based on Gini Index Regularization

In compressive sensing(CS) based inverse synthetic aperture radar(ISAR) imaging approaches, the quality of final image significantly depends on the number of measurements and the noise level. In this paper, we propose an improved version of CSbased method for inverse synthetic aperture radar(ISAR) imaging. Different from the traditional l1 norm based CS ISAR imaging method, our method explores the use of Gini index to measure the sparsity of ISAR images to improve the imaging quality. Instead of simultaneous perturbation stochastic approximation(SPSA), we use weighted l1 norm as the surrogate functional and successfully develop an iteratively re-weighted algorithm to reconstruct ISAR images from compressed echo samples. Experimental results show that our approach significantly reduces the number of measurements needed for exact reconstruction and effectively suppresses the noise. Both the peak sidelobe ratio(PSLR) and the reconstruction relative error(RE) indicate that the proposed method outperforms the l1 norm based method.

Entropy function optimization for radar imaging

The convergence performance of the minimum entropy auto-focusing（MEA） algorithm for inverse synthetic aperture radar（ISAR） imaging is analyzed by simulation. The results show that a local optimal solution problem exists in the MEA algorithm. The cost function of the MEA algorithm is not a downward-convex function of multidimensional phases to be compensated. Only when the initial values of the compensated phases are chosen to be near the global minimal point of the entropy function, the MEA algorithm can converge to a global optimal solution. To study the optimal solution problem of the MEA algorithm, a new scheme of entropy function optimization for radar imaging is presented. First, the initial values of the compensated phases are estimated by using the modified Doppler centroid tracking （DCT）algorithm. Since these values are obtained according to the maximum likelihood （ML） principle, the initial phases can be located near the optimal solution values. Then, a fast MEA algorithm is used for the local searching process and the global optimal solution can be obtained. The simulation results show that this scheme can realize the global optimization of the MEA algorithm and can avoid the selection and adjustment of parameters such as iteration step lengths, threshold values, etc.

A modified OMP method for multi-orbit three dimensional ISAR imaging of the space target

The conventional two dimensional(2D)inverse synthetic aperture radar(ISAR)imaging fails to provide the targets'three dimensional(3D)information.In this paper,a 3D ISAR imaging method for the space target is proposed based on mutliorbit observation data and an improved orthogonal matching pursuit(OMP)algorithm.Firstly,the 3D scattered field data is converted into a set of 2D matrix by stacking slices of the 3D data along the elevation direction dimension.Then,an improved OMP algorithm is applied to recover the space target's amplitude information via the 2D matrix data.Finally,scattering centers can be reconstructed with specific three dimensional locations.Numerical simulations are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed 3D imaging method.

A fast decoupled ISAR high-resolution imaging method using structural sparse information under low SNR

Inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) image can be represented and reconstructed by sparse recovery (SR) approaches. However, the existing SR algorithms, which are used for ISAR imaging, have suffered from high computational cost and poor imaging quality under a low signal to noise ratio (SNR) condition. This paper proposes a fast decoupled ISAR imaging method by exploiting the inherent structural sparse information of the targets. Firstly, the ISAR imaging problem is decoupled into two sub-problems. One is range direction imaging and the other is azimuth direction focusing. Secondly, an efficient two-stage SR method is proposed to obtain higher resolution range profiles by using jointly sparse information. Finally, the residual linear Bregman iteration via fast Fourier transforms (RLBI-FFT) is proposed to perform the azimuth focusing on low SNR efficiently. Theoretical analysis and simulation results show that the proposed method has better performence to efficiently implement higher-resolution ISAR imaging under the low SNR condition.

ISAR imaging based on improved phase retrieval algorithm

Traditional inverse synthetic aperture radar(ISAR)imaging methods for maneuvering targets have low resolution and poor capability of noise suppression. An ISAR imaging method of maneuvering targets based on phase retrieval is proposed,which can provide a high-resolution and focused map of the spatial distribution of scatterers on the target. According to theoretical derivation, the modulus of raw data from the maneuvering target is not affected by radial motion components for ISAR imaging system, so the phase retrieval algorithm can be used for ISAR imaging problems. However, the traditional phase retrieval algorithm will be not applicable to ISAR imaging under the condition of random noise. To solve this problem, an algorithm is put forward based on the range Doppler(RD) algorithm and oversampling smoothness(OSS) phase retrieval algorithm. The algorithm captures the target information in order to reduce the influence of the random phase on ISAR echoes, and then applies OSS for focusing imaging based on prior information of the RD algorithm. The simulated results demonstrate the validity of this algorithm, which cannot only obtain high resolution imaging for high speed maneuvering targets under the condition of random noise, but also substantially improve the success rate of the phase retrieval algorithm.

Autofocus technique for ISAR imaging of uniformly rotating targets based on the ExCoV method

The inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) imaging can be converted into a sparse reconstruction problem and solved by the l1norm minimization algorithm. The basis matrix in sparse ISAR imaging is usually characterized by the unknown rotation rate of a moving target, thus the rotation rate and the sparse signal should be jointly estimated. Especially due to the imperfect coarse motion compensation, we consider the phase error correction problem in the context of the sparse signal reconstruction. To address this issue, we propose an iterative reweighted method, which jointly estimates the rotation rate, corrects the phase error and reconstructs a high resolution ISAR image. The proposed method gives a gradual and interweaved iterative process to refine the unknown parameters to achieve the best sparse representation for the ISAR signals. Particularly, in ISAR image reconstruction, the l1norm minimization algorithm is sensitive to user parameters. Setting these user parameters are not trivial and the reconstruction performance depends significantly on their choices. Then, we consider an expansion-compression variance-component (ExCoV) based method, which is automatic and demands no prior knowledge about signal-sparsity or measurement-noise levels. Both numerical and electromagnetic data experiments are implemented to show the effectiveness of the proposed method. It is shown that the proposed method can estimate the rotation rate and correct the phase errors simultaneously, and its superior performance is proved in terms of high resolution ISAR image. © 2017 Beijing Institute of Aerospace Information.

Rotational parameters estimation of maneuvering target in ISAR imaging

The rotational parameters estimation of maneuvering target is the key of cross-range scaling of ISAR （inverse synthetic aperture radar）, which can be used in the target feature extraction. The cross-range signal model of rotating target with fixed acceleration is presented and the weighted linear least squares estimation of rotational parameters with fixed velocity or acceleration is proposed via the relationship of cross-range FM （frequency modulation） parameter, scatterers coordinates and rotational parameters. The FM parameter is calculated via RWT （Radon-Wigner transform）. The ISAR imaging and cross-range scaling based on scaled RWT imaging method are implemented after obtaining rotational parameters. The rotational parameters estimation and cross-range scaling are validated by the ISAR processing of experimental radar data, and the method presents good application foreground to the ISAR imaging and scaling of maneuvering target.

Fast ISAR imaging method based on scene segmentation

Although compressed sensing inverse synthetic aperture radar(ISAR) imaging methods are widely used in radar signal processing, its reconstructing time and memory storage space requirements are very high. The main reason is that large scene reconstruction needs a higher dimension of the sensing matrix. To reduce this limitation, a fast high resolution ISAR imaging method,which is based on scene segmentation for random chirp frequencystepped signals, is proposed. The idea of scene segmentation is used to solve the problems aforementioned. In the method,firstly, the observed scene is divided into multiple sub-scenes and then the sub-scenes are reconstructed respectively. Secondly, the whole image scene can be obtained through the stitching of the sub-scenes. Due to the reduction of the dimension of the sensing matrix, the requirement of the memory storage space is reduced substantially. In addition, due to the nonlinear superposition of the reconstructed time of the segmented sub-scenes, the reconstruction time is reduced, and the purpose of fast imaging is achieved.Meanwhile, the feasibility and the related factors which affect the performance of the proposed method are also analyzed, and the selection criterion of the scene segmentation is afforded. Finally,theoretical analysis and simulation results demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method.

Optimal ship imaging for shore-based ISAR using DCF estimation

The optimal imaging time selection of ship targets for shore-based inverse synthetic aperture radar （ISAR） in high sea conditions is investigated. The optimal imaging time includes opti- mal imaging instants and optimal imaging duration. A novel method for optimal imaging instants selection based on the estimation of the Doppler centroid frequencies （DCFs） of a series of images obtained over continuous short durations is proposed. Combined with the optimal imaging duration selection scheme using the image contrast maximization criteria, this method can provide the ship images with the highest focus. Simulated and real data pro- cessing results verify the effectiveness of the proposed imaging method.

Approach for ISAR imaging of near-field targets based on coordinate conversion and image interpolation

Inverse synthetic aperture radar(ISAR)imaging of near-field targets is potentially useful in some specific applications,which makes it very important to efficiently produce highquality image of the near-field target.In this paper,the simplified target model with uniform linear motion is applied to the near-field target imaging,which overcomes the complexity of the traditional near-field imaging algorithm.According to this signal model,the method based on coordinate conversion and image interpolation combined with the range-Doppler(R-D)algorithm is proposed to correct the near-field distortion problem.Compared with the back-projection(BP)algorithm,the proposed method produces better focused ISAR images of the near-field target,and decreases the computation complexity significantly.Experimental results of the simulated data have demonstrated the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed method.

Evaluation of Trajectory Error Effects in BP Based Space Target ISAR Imaging

The space target imaging is important in the development of space technology.Due to the availability of trajectory information of the space targets and the arising of rapid parallel processing hardware,the back projection (BP) method has been applied to synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging and shows a number of advantages as compared with conventional Fourier-domain imaging algorithms.However,the practical processing shows that the insufficient accuracy of the trajectory information results in the degrading of the imaging results.On the other hand,the autofocusing algorithms for BP imaging are not well developed,which is a bottleneck for the application of BP imaging.Here,an analysis of the effect of trajectory errors on the space target imaging using microlocal technology is presented.Our analysis provides an explicit quantitative relationship between the trajectory errors of the space target and the positioning errors in the reconstructed images.The explicit form of the position errors for some typical trajectory errors is also presented.Numerical simulations demonstrate our theoretical findings.The measured position errors obtained from the reconstructed images are consistent with the analytic errors calculated by using the derived formulas.Our results will be used in the development of effective autofocusing methods for BP imaging.

Sparse Bayesian learning in ISAR tomography imaging

Inverse synthetic aperture radar(ISAR) imaging can be regarded as a narrow-band version of the computer aided tomography(CT). The traditional CT imaging algorithms for ISAR, including the polar format algorithm(PFA) and the convolution back projection algorithm(CBP), usually suffer from the problem of the high sidelobe and the low resolution. The ISAR tomography image reconstruction within a sparse Bayesian framework is concerned. Firstly, the sparse ISAR tomography imaging model is established in light of the CT imaging theory. Then, by using the compressed sensing(CS) principle, a high resolution ISAR image can be achieved with limited number of pulses. Since the performance of existing CS-based ISAR imaging algorithms is sensitive to the user parameter, this makes the existing algorithms inconvenient to be used in practice. It is well known that the Bayesian formalism of recover algorithm named sparse Bayesian learning(SBL) acts as an effective tool in regression and classification,which uses an efficient expectation maximization procedure to estimate the necessary parameters, and retains a preferable property of the l0-norm diversity measure. Motivated by that, a fully automated ISAR tomography imaging algorithm based on SBL is proposed.Experimental results based on simulated and electromagnetic(EM) data illustrate the effectiveness and the superiority of the proposed algorithm over the existing algorithms.

Three-dimensional bistatic interferometric ISA Rimaging

An approach based on interferometry technique is proposed for three-dimensional （3D） bistatic inverse synthetic aperture radar （ISAR） imaging. It is converted to a monostatic problem by using the theory that a bistatic radar equals a monostatic radar located on the bisector of bistatic an- gle. Then, interferometric phases extracted from a pair of cross shaped antennas are used to esti- mate the height and associated rotational velocity. Finally, numerical simulations are provided to e- valuate this method.

微波视觉与SAR图像智能解译

高分辨率雷达成像技术和人工智能、大数据技术的快速发展,有力促进了雷达图像智能解译技术的进步。由于雷达传感器本身的特殊性和电磁散射成像物理的复杂性,雷达图像的解译缺乏光学图像的直观性,准确迅速识别分类的需求对雷达图像解译提出了迫切的挑战。在借鉴人脑光视觉感知机理和计算机视觉图像处理相关技术基础上,进一步融合电磁散射物理规律及其雷达成像机理,我们提出发展微波域雷达图像解译的“微波视觉”的新交叉领域研究。该文介绍微波视觉的概念与内涵,提出微波视觉认知模型,阐述其基础理论问题与技术路线,最后介绍了作者团队在相关问题上的初步研究进展。

吸波材料覆盖直升机强散射源RCS缩减分析

针对武装直升机的宽带隐身问题,提出利用射线追踪和逆合成孔径雷达(Inverse synthetic aperture radar,ISAR)成像确定直升机强散射源位置的方法,形成电磁超构材料和磁性材料一体化设计直升机部分强散射源的隐身设计构想,并计算分析了两款隐身材料加载后对整机隐身效果的影响。首先,分析等效媒质理论、射线追踪与ISAR成像原理。然后,通过射线追踪以及ISAR成像的计算,精确且直观地捕获强散射源部位。最后,给出了两款材料的反射系数并分析加载直升机后单站雷达散射截面(Radar cross section,RCS)变化。计算结果表明,两种不同类型隐身材料覆盖直升机强散射源部位后可以达到局部角域范围内RCS缩减的目的,为隐身材料和直升机蒙皮及旋翼的融合设计提供了参考。

基于时空注意力-Seq2Seq网络的ISAR包络对齐方法

包络对齐是逆合成孔径雷达(Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar,ISAR)成像中平动补偿处理的第一步,包络对齐的精度对于方位聚焦和成像质量具有重要影响。针对稀疏孔径和低信噪比条件下传统的包络对齐算法性能显著降低的问题,本文提出一种基于时空注意力-Seq2Seq网络的包络对齐方法。该网络模型以门控循环单元为编码解码单元,针对点目标距离像包络的能量分布特征对空间注意力机制进行改进后,添加时间和空间两维注意力机制形成对ISAR距离像回波包络进行对齐的能力。数据生成方面,基于电磁波仿真参数和目标运动仿真参数进行成像模拟仿真构造了ISAR回波数据集,经过8倍插值后输入网络进行训练,使网络学习到从未对齐回波到对齐回波的映射关系。所提方法以离线训练代替在线相关计算,融合了Seq2Seq模型在处理序列到序列问题上的结构优势、时间注意力机制在捕捉长期依赖关系和空间注意力机制在提取区域特征上的突出能力,实现了稀疏孔径和低信噪比条件下对距离-慢时间域ISAR回波的自动对齐。通过向训练好的时空注意力-Seq2Seq网络输入未对齐的回波序列,网络可以在不改变回波相位结构的前提下自动实现包络对齐。仿真和实测数据对齐结果表明,和传统的包络对齐方法相比,所提方法在稀疏孔径和低信噪比条件下优势明显,在欠采样率为50%、信噪比为0 dB条件下对雅克-42飞机实测回波数据的包络对齐实验中,该方法将循环移位误差由39、26减小至6,将成像结果的图像熵由4.58、4.22减小至1.71,验证了其良好性能。

微波光子W波段宽带雷达成像技术研究

W波段逆合成孔径雷达(inverse synthetic aperture radar,ISAR)具有成像分辨率高、成像距离远、体积小、重量轻等特点,适用于机载、弹载、星载等应用领域,是雷达系统中的一个重要的研究方向。微波光子技术由于具有高频、大带宽、低传输损耗等优势,是克服传统雷达面临“电子瓶颈”效应的主要手段。本文提出一种基于微波光子技术实现的W波段调频信号体制ISAR成像系统。在发射端,使用微波光子倍频技术实现了瞬时带宽为8 GHz的W波段线性调频(linearly frequency-modulated,LFM)信号生成。在接收端,基于微波光子去斜技术实现回波信号去斜处理。ISAR成像仿真结果表明,不同姿态下的目标轮廓清晰可辨。

基于ISAIL的空间小目标成像系统设计与仿真

为了实现对空间小目标的毫米级成像,设计了基于转台模型的逆合成孔径成像激光雷达系统,实现了距离向和方位向的数据融合并完成了模拟目标的2维图像重建.系统采用窄线宽光纤激光器、大带宽电光调制器完成了对激光脉冲的线性调频,并利用外差干涉的原理提高了回波信号的信噪比.结合空间小目标的运动特性,推演了含有旋转分量的激光雷达回波信号方程.在R-D算法中代入旋转分量完成图像重建的校正,实现了对模拟空间小目标的2维图像重建.实验用毫米级铝条模拟空间小目标,用步进电机使转台匀速旋转,模拟目标旋转过程.实验结果显示:当目标固定时通过回波能量即可获得1维距离向图像,峰值位置与真实目标的特征位置一致;当目标运动时通过数据压缩、R-D算法及旋转分量的校正可获得模拟小目标ISAIL的2维重建图像,验证了系统可实现对毫米级模拟小目标的图像重建.