Array-error estimation method for multi-channel SAR systems in azimuth

For multi-channel synthetic aperture radar（SAR） systems, since the minimum antenna area constraint is eliminated,wide swath and high resolution SAR image can be achieved.However, the unavoidable array errors, consisting of channel gainphase mismatch and position uncertainty, significantly degrade the performance of such systems. An iteration-free method is proposed to simultaneously estimate position and gain-phase errors.In our research, the steering vectors corresponding to a pair of Doppler bins within the same range bin are studied in terms of their rotational relationships. The method is based on the fact that the rotational matrix only depends on the position errors and the frequency spacing between the paired Doppler bins but is independent of gain-phase error. Upon combining the projection matrices corresponding to the paired Doppler bins, the position errors are directly obtained in terms of extracting the rotational matrix in a least squares framework. The proposed method, when used in conjunction with the self-calibration algorithm, performs stably as well as has less computational load, compared with the conventional methods. Simulations reveal that the proposed method behaves better than the conventional methods even when the signal-to-noise ratio（SNR） is low.

Sparse three-dimensional imaging for forward-looking array SAR using spatial continuity

For forward-looking array synthetic aperture radar(FASAR),the scattering intensity of ground scatterers fluctuates greatly since there are kinds of vegetations and topography on the surface of the ground,and thus the signal-to-noise ratio(SNR)of its echo signals corresponding to different vegetations and topography also varies obviously.Owing to the reason known to all,the performance of the sparse reconstruction of compressed sensing(CS)becomes worse in the case of lower SNR,and the quality of the sparse three-dimensional imaging for FASAR would be affected significantly in the practical application.In this paper,the spatial continuity of the ground scatterers is introduced to the sparse recovery algorithm of CS in the threedimensional imaging for FASAR,in which the weighted least square method of the cubic interpolation is used to filter out the bad and isolated scatterer.The simulation results show that the proposed method can realize the sparse three-dimensional imaging of FASAR more effectively in the case of low SNR.

BEAM BROADENING SYNTHESIS FOR SAR ANTENNA ARRAY BASED ON PROJECTION MATRIX ALGORITHM

A new beam broadening synthesis technique for Synthetic Aperture Radar(SAR) antenna array, namely Projection Matrix Algorithm(PMA) is presented. The theory of PMA is introduced firstly, and then the iterative renewed manner is improved to resolve the unbalance problem under amplitude and phase control. In order to validate the algorithm correct and effective, an actual engineering application example is investigated. The beam synthesis results of 1.0~4.5 times broadening under the phase only control and the amplitude and phase control using improved PMA are given. The results show that the beam directivity, the beam broadening, and the side-lobe level requirements were met. It is demonstrated that the improved PMA was effective and feasible for SAR application.