Explicit motion compensation for backprojection in spotlight SAR

Abstract

In an airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) scenario, the global Backprojection algorithm enables processing of non-linear flight paths, but not with variable velocities of the aircraft. The proposed additional explicit motion compensation uses an equidistant resampling of the flight path to ensure high image quality, despite variable platform velocity (even negative velocities) and flight paths including loops. Hence, small helicopters or minicopters could be used for SAR. Numerical simulations show the capability of the proposed algorithm, even for motion errors greater than 50 m.