Stripmap SAR Mocomp2005

Stripmap Mode Synthetic Aperture Radar Imaging with Motion Compensation
ROBERT
ERIKSSON
Master's Degree Project Stockholm, Sweden 2005
IR-SIP-EX-0507
Saab Bofors Dynamics AB

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Robert Eriksson
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Mikael Hmlinen
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Abstract This Master thesis investigates two different SAR focusing methods. One method applies low-pass filtration and the other is based on FFT and is called the steptransform. The evaluated techniques are used for focusing of the raw-data collected by airborne radars. The radar data is collected in stripmap mode and both the broadside and the squint case is regarded. The two implemented methods are evaluated with different types of motion deviation, some deviations taken from real measurements. Variations in the crab angle have an effect in the step-transform whereas the low-pass algorithm handles the variations well. Large variations in the crab angle results in mainlobe broadening and increased sidelobe levels for the steptransform. The low-pass filtering algorithm could be adjusted to handle SAR data in high squint mode. The adjustment was a squint compensation to the line perpendicular to the antenna pointing direction. The step-transform was not able to handle SAR data in squint mode for aircraft application. This was concluded by a careful analysis of the algorithm and by applying simulated radar data.
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Acknowledgement This Master of Science Thesis was carried out between December 2004 and June 2005 at SAAB Bofors Dynamics AB in Jrflla, Sweden. I would like to thank my supervisors Mikael Hmlinien at Saab Bofors Dynamics, Jonas Lindblom at the Signals, Sensors and Systems (S3) department of KTH. I also would like to thank my examiner Bastiaan Kleijn at the Signals, Sensors and Systems (S3) department of KTH. Their guidance and support have been really helpful, and without their advice this thesis would not have been the same. I would also like to thank everybody from Saab Bofors Dynamics in Jrflla for their kindness and hospitality.

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Table of contents 1 1.1 1.2 2 2.1 2.2 3 3.1 3.1.1 4 5 6 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.3.1 6.3.2 7 7.1 7.2 7.2.1 7.2.2 7.3 7.4 7.4.1 8 8.1 8.2 9 9.1 9.1.1 9.1.2 Background .................................................................................... 5 This project ....................................................................................... 6 Previous work ................................................................................... 7 SAR fundamentals...................................................................... 8 SAR modes ...................................................................................... 12 SAR antenna ................................................................................... 15 The simulation model............................................................. 17 Pulse compression ........................................................................ 19 A mathematic description.......................................................... 20 Sidelobe suppression ............................................................. 23 Motion error compensation ................................................ 25 SAR signal processing ........................................................... 26 Broadside mode ............................................................................ 26 High squint mode ......................................................................... 27 Range-cell migration ................................................................... 27 A mathematical description of broadside mode ............... 28 A mathematical description of high squint mode ............ 30 Azimuth focusing ...................................................................... 36 Preprocessing of data.................................................................. 36 Theoretical resolution in azimuth direction ........................ 38 Real aperture radar...................................................................... 39 Synthetic aperture radar ........................................................... 39 The low-pass filtering algorithm ............................................. 41 The step-transform ...................................................................... 44 The step-transform in high squint mode............................. 57 Implementation ......................................................................... 62 Implementing the filter algorithm .......................................... 62 Implementing the step-transform ......................................... 65 Simulation results .................................................................... 66 Simulations of straight flight path in broadside mode ... 67 Low-pass filter algorithm ........................................................... 67 Step-transform .............................................................................. 69

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Resolution comparison ............................................................... 71 Simulations of motion deviations in broadside mode .... 72 Example of target scene in broadside mode ..................... 90 Simulations of motion deviations in squint mode............ 94 Computational load analysis ............................................. 97 The computational load of the step-transform ................. 97 The computational load of the low-pass filter algorithm98 Computational load comparison ............................................. 99 Conclusions ................................................................................ 101 Bibliography............................................................................... 102 List of acronyms ...................................................................... 104

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Background
Radar is a shortening for RAdio Detection And Ranging and was developed in the 1930s to detect and track aircrafts and ships. Radars can be classified as ground based, airborne, spaceborne or ship based radar system. They can also be classified into several different categories for example operating frequency band, type of antenna and transmitting waveforms. They can also be divided into the utilization of the radar. The radars are divided into two main categories continuous wave (CW) or pulsed radars (PR), which differ in the way of transmitting. CW radars transmit electromagnetic energy continuously and uses separate transmit and receive antennas. PR transmit pulse trains of electromagnetic pulses, and are often using the same antenna for transmitting and receiving of the backscattered signal. In this thesis pulsed radar will be regarded. Imaging radars sends out electromagnetic waves, with a wavelength longer than visible light. Objects in the illuminated scene reflects portions of this energy back to the radar. Imaging radars are generating an electromagnetic map of the illuminated surface to separate different type of objects on the surface. Radar can operate day and night trough clouds, fog and rain, as well as at very long ranges. High range resolution was obtained by using pulses with high bandwidths. For real aperture radars the azimuth resolution was limited by the antenna beamwidth, two targets could only be resolved if they were separated with at least one beamwidth. To improve the resolution the beamwidth had to be reduced, which was enabled by increasing the transmitter frequency or by utilizing physically larger antennas. For airborne radars these requirements can however not be satisfied, whereby the resolution was limited. In 1951 Carl Wiley of the Goodyear Aircraft Corporation noted that the reflections from two fixed targets in the antenna beam, but at different angular positions relative to the velocity vector of the platform, could be resolved by frequency analysis. Each target had different Doppler characteristics because of its relative position to the radar platform. The use of this knowledge was taken into account in a side looking aperture radar (SLAR), whereby the azimuth resolution of the real aperture radar could be improved by proper Doppler processing. The technique is called synthetic aperture radar because a synthetic aperture antenna is used. This is done by taking advantage of the forward motion of the radar platform and coherently combining the received signals of the real antenna along the flight track to produce a very long array antenna. Coherence means that the phase of the received signals should be preserved.

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The utilization of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) techniques is becoming increasingly widespread in many applications ranging from satellite remote sensing of land and sea, through to target imaging from airborne radar for military purposes.
1.1
This project
To be able to produce a high resolution SAR image accurate signal and motion analysis need to be performed, furthermore it uses high computational load. The computational load must be kept low to be able to produce a real time application, since the received quantity of radar data per time is high. Therefore in many applications a real time stripmap SAR image with lower computational load is desirable to effectively get an image of the illuminated area and to be able to evaluate the collected data. There are several things that must be taken in account, for example motion deviations. All motion deviations will have a large affect on the collected data, especially when working at high frequencies. The input data used in this report is a simulation of collected data from a radar placed onboard an airplane. The simulated target scene consists of stationary point targets i.e. the radar clutter is neglected. The received energy from a point target in the raw SAR data is spread in range and azimuth. The purpose of the SAR focusing is to collect this dispersed energy into a single point in the output image. The coherent combining of the received pulses during the flight path is producing a synthetic aperture radar. There are many different SAR-focusing methods, each has its own advantages and disadvantages. Within the topic stripmap mode SAR focusing there are for instance the low-pass filtering and the matched filtering methods. In this project one method based on low-pass filtering and one method based on matched-filtering will be analyzed. The methods fast convolution, basic spectral analysis and step-transform are all methods within the category of matched filtering. The step-transform is chosen to be analyzed since it does not have the limitations of loss of computational efficiency at or near spatial resolution and no variation of the output data rate which the other two algorithms have. The step-transform is developed for the broadside application. For the high squint application the step-transform is adjusted to a method called the time-varying steptransform developed by Xiaobing Sun et al [1], [2] and [3]. The challenge is to adjust the step-transform algorithm for this airborne SAR application and to do an evaluation. The time-varying step-transform is developed for satellite applications which mean that the range is much larger than for the application used in this report.

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The range for a satellite is about 1000 km and for airplane radar application the range is only about 5 km. The methods will be evaluated with real and simulated flight paths to create raw-data from point targets. The methods will be compared in azimuth resolution, computational load and motion error robustness. By using motion sensors the actual position can be measured, whereby the collected data can be motion compensated. How large and what types of deviations can be compensated and what affect will it give in the final results? High squint (see 6.2) of the antenna will introduce some other aspects that need to be taken into account, which can be neglected in the broadside mode (see 6.1). Range cell migration (see 6.3) will arise and affect the phase of the received signal, and must also be compensated.
1.2
Previous work
The two SAR focusing techniques analyzed in this project are both well-known approaches for the broadside situation [4],[5]. For the high squint situation the timevarying step-transform has only been evaluated for satellite SAR applications [1],[2],[3],[6]. The performance of the method for low-altitude applications (e.g. airplanes, missiles etc.) will be investigated in this project.

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SAR fundamentals
The range direction is the antenna pointing direction, and the azimuth direction is perpendicular to the range direction. Before considering the properties of a synthetic aperture radar system, the properties of real aperture radar (RAR) are mentioned [7]. For RAR systems only the amplitude of the backscattered signal is of concern to form an image. A fine range resolution is obtained by transmitting broadband signals, where the bandwidth is improved by shortening the pulse width or by modulating the signal waveform, which is explained in section 3.1 Pulse compression. The azimuth resolution is given by the width of the antenna beamwidth, which is dependent upon the physical antenna length and the transmitter frequency. The width of the beam is also increasing with the distance from the antenna to the surface. Since the antenna is placed above the surface at an altitude and the illuminated scene is far away, the beamwidth need to be really narrow. Two targets on the ground can be separated only if they are not both in the radar beam at the same time, i.e. separated by at least one beamwidth. Instead of using a long real antenna a synthetic antenna can be created, by taking advantage of the forward motion of the radar platform. As the radar is moving along the flight path a pulse is transmitted and received at equally distance. By coherently combining the received signals along the flight track, a very long array antenna is produced. A synthetic antenna is thereby created which is equivalent to a long real antenna, see Figure 2-1.
Figure 2-1. An overview of the SAR geometry.

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The SAR processing is a two-dimensional problem. In the received SAR data, the signal energy from a point target is spread in both range and azimuth, and the purpose of SAR focusing is to compress this energy into a point in the output image. The range direction spreading arises by the width of the transmitted pulse. In azimuth direction the signal is spread by the duration it is illuminated by the antenna beamwidth. Pulsed radars are using a train of pulses often with some modulation, where the pulse repetition frequency (PRF) is the rate for the emitted pulses. The maximum PRF is set to avoid range ambiguity see equation (4.) and the minimum PRF is set by the Doppler content see equation (3.), which is given according to:
f Doppler = 2v cos( s )
(1.)
where v is the platform velocity is the wavelength s is the angle to the target, see Figure 2-2.
Figure 2-2. SAR target Doppler return from stationary targets A, B, C.
The maximum Doppler frequency arises at the greatest angle, which is given by real antenna beamwidth.

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The PRF interval is given by:
PRFmin PRF PRFmax

PRFmin =
PRFmax =
(2.)
2Rmax
2 Rmax c
or PRFmin = 2 f Doppler max
(3.)
(4.)
where Rmax is the maximum range of the illuminated scene Rmax 2 is the maximum range difference between two adjacent sample points, i.e. the phase shift between two adjacent sample points must be less than . fDoppler max is the maximum Doppler frequency of a target.
The low-pass filter algorithm is based on the knowledge that the Doppler frequency is zero for a target, when the antenna is exactly perpendicular to the target relative the flight path. Hence can a low-pass filter be applied on the received data to get the targets azimuth positions. The step-transform uses the concept of deramping the Doppler frequency of the targets followed by spectral analysis. Targets distributed in azimuth will be separated by its constant frequency after the FFTs. Step-transform is a two-step algorithm which divides the received signal (in azimuth) into subapertures. The data in each subaperture is correlated with the matched reference function in order to obtain the low resolution images. By adding all the subapertures coherently, a high resolution image is obtained. In general the radar platform is traveling in a straight line and a single antenna is used for both transmission and reception of the backscattered signal. In practice it is impossible to fly in a perfectly straight line at a constant velocity. There are always some perturbations which cause deviation from the ideal path of flight, whereby a motion compensation must be performed on the received radar signals. A SAR system consists of three basic blocks, SAR sensor, motion sensor and image formation processor, shown in Figure 2-3. The outputs from the two sensor blocks are the input to the image formation processor which creates the final SAR image. The SAR sensor generates, transmits and receives the electromagnetic pulses. The received signal is sampled and the term "range cell" refers to samples in the range or "fast time" direction.

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Figure 2-3. An overview of the SAR system
The motion sensor measures the movement of the radar platform with accurate precision. The attitude of the airplane is defined by three axis, roll, pitch and yaw. The yaw axis is defined to be perpendicular to the vertical axis and perpendicular to the wings of the plane, its origin is placed at the center of gravity and directed towards the bottom of the aircraft. A yaw motion is a movement of the nose of the aircraft from side to side, see Figure 2-4.
Figure 2-4. The figure shows the yaw rotion of the airplane.
The pitch axis is perpendicular to the yaw axis and is parallel to the plane of the wings with its origin at the center of gravity and directed towards the right wing tip. A pitch motion up or down is a movement of the nose of the aircraft, see Figure 2-5.

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Figure 2-5 The figure shows the pitch rotation of the airplane.
The roll axis is perpendicular to the yaw and the pitch axis the other two axes with its origin at the center of gravity, and is directed towards the nose of the aircraft. Rolling motion is an up and down movement of the wing tips of the aircraft, see Figure 2-6.
Figure 2-6. The figure shows the roll rotation of the airplane
The sensor also measures the heading which is the direction of the real motion vector in the XY-plane. The crab angle is defined by the heading angle minus the yaw angle. In addition, the altitude, latitude and longitude position is estimated, in the basis of measuring the acceleration. With these measurements the transportation of the antenna position is given, and used for the necessary compensations. The image formation processor comprises components for the data processing to achieve the final image. It uses the data from the two sensor blocks to process the final image.
2.1
SAR modes
There are four different modes of SAR, spotlight, stripmap, scan and inverse SAR. The modes differ is the way they illuminates the surface.

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In stripmap mode, shown in Figure 2-7, the antenna is pointed at a fixed angle during the data collection along the flight path. This means that the antenna scans over a particular area which is parallel to the flight path. The antenna can be squinted backward, forward or just perpendicular relative the flight path. In this mode a target is only illuminated for a limited amount of time. When using spotlight mode, shown in Figure 2-8, the antenna is steered (mechanically or electrically) to illuminate a particular area during the entire flight path. This mode creates a very long synthetic antenna. The most important features that differ spotlight mode and stripmap are: 1. Spotlight mode illuminates the same area during the entire flight path which is not the case for stripmap. Hence becomes the length of the synthetic antenna much longer for the spotlight mode than for the stripmap mode. 2. The spotlight mode gives a better resolution then stripmap to the price of smaller illuminated target scene. 3. The angle of illumination for the stripmap mode is fixed and given by the squint angle. In spotlight mode the target are illuminate from a much wider angular variation. In scan mode, shown in Figure 2-9, the antenna is steered to illuminate a strip of terrain at any angle relative the flight path. The difference between scan mode and stripmap is the removal of the antenna pointing direction. The mode called inverse SAR, shown in Figure 2-10, works in a similar way as spotlight mode. Instead of movement of the antenna it uses a stationary antenna and a moving target.
Figure 2-7. SAR in stripmap mode.

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Figure 2-8. SAR in spotlight mode.
Figure 2-9. SAR in scan mode.
Figure 2-10. SAR in inverse mode.

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2.2
SAR antenna
Normally the same antenna is used for both transmitting and receiving of the signals. In SAR is the real antenna used to produce a synthetic antenna, by combing the received signal to a synthetic antenna. Real versus synthetic arrays, the radiation of the two types of antenna is compared. The mainlobe of the synthetic array is twice as wide as the mainlobe for the real array. This means that to get the same azimuth resolution as with a real array of length L, a synthetic array of the twice length i.e. 2L is required [8]. In the Figure 2-11 is the array pattern for a synthetic and a real array of the same length plotted.
Figure 2-11. The array pattern for real versus synthetic antenna.
In the simulation model the antenna with the antenna pattern shown in the Figure 2-12 is used. The beamwidth is given by the -3 dB antenna radiation amplification width. The antenna radiation beamwidth used in the report is 5.6 degrees, see Figure 2-12.

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Figure 2-12. Shows the amplification of the antenna.
Figure 2-13. A magnified view of the antenna amplification.

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The simulation model
A simulation model was created to simulate raw-data, i.e. produce data for stationary point targets to be processed. In reality there are endless amounts of reflecting objects, which all contribute to the final result. The reflections from vegetation, terrain, sea etc. is usually referred to as clutter, and is not included in the applied simulation model. The measurements of the antenna position used in the simulation model are assumed to have no error. In reality the position of the antenna is measured with very high precision, thus can the measurement error be neglected. Simply the received signal is a copy of the transmitted signal but with a time delay and reduced amplitude. The time delay is the durations for the signal to go to and to come back from the target, which is twice the range divided by the propagation velocity. The amplitude is proportional to target radar cross section (RCS), antenna gain and range attenuation. The influence by the antenna is described in the section 2.2 SAR antenna. In this simulation model the data from the SAR sensor in Figure 2-3 is simulated. The simulated data is created with the measurements from the motion sensor in Figure 2-3. The transmitted chirp signal is:
s (t ) = At rect ( t nT i[ 2 ( f ct + 2 t 2 ] )e Tp
(5.)
where B is the chirp rate = Tp B is the bandwidth of the transmitted signal Tp is the length of the transmitted signal fc is the chirp center frequency At is the transmitted amplitude t is the time in the range direction, often called fast time rect is the rectangular function defined by:
1 rect (t ) = 0
t 1 t >1
(6.)
A chirp is a swept frequency where the instantaneous frequency varies with time.

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The transmitted signal is plotted in Figure 3-1. The received echo from the targets is:
r (t ) = Ar rect (
i[ 2 ( f c (t t )+ (t t )2 )] t nT d 2 d t d )e Tp
(7.)
where Ar is the received amplitude from a target 2R is the time delay td = c R is the distance to the target, which is dependent on antenna phase center and target position.
R = ( X APC X t arg et ) 2 + (Y APC Yt arg et ) 2 + ( Z APC Z t arg et ) 2 R APC = ( X APC , Y APC , Z APC ) is the position of the antenna Rt arg et = ( X t arg et , Yt arg et , Z t arg et ) is the position of the target
In this simulation model the measurement errors is assumed to be zero.
Figure 3-1. The frequency variation of the transmitted signal.

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The final single pulse raw-data is created by the sum of the all backscattered (delayed) signals from one transmitted pulse. Repeating this for all transmitted pulses along the azimuth direction and the final raw-data is produced. The model is designed to be flexible i.e. the included parameters should easily be changed. It should take the flight path as input and include the amplification of the antenna. The input signal consists of the motion of the antenna, it can come from real measurements or from simulations. For this simulation an ideal flight path is assumed.
3.1
Pulse compression
For older radar systems where no pulse compression was possible, the range resolution was improved by reducing the pulse length. The disadvantage is that the transmitted power is also decreased which is directly linked to the signal to noise ratio (SNR). By instead transmitting frequency modulated pulses and using pulse compression techniques, the pulse length can be increased and still achieve fine range resolution. This also allows the pulses to be transmitted with a lower peak power. The linear FM pulse has the property that, when correlating it with a matched filter, it results in a narrow pulse in which all the pulse energy has been collected. Pulse compression techniques can separate two targets in range, with overlapped radar returns. The filter has the property of introducing a time lag that decreases linearly with frequency. It decreases at exactly the same rate as the frequency increases at the transmitted pulse. Range compression is performed on each received pulse. In practice this is performed in the frequency domain using the FFT. The frequency response of the matched filter is generated only once, by taking the complex conjugate of the Fourier transform of the transmitted frequency modulated signal, see Figure 3-2.
Figure 3-2. Pulse compression.

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Weighting functions can be used on the received pulses in order to reduce the sidelobe levels. The disadvantage is mainlobe broadening, for more details see section 4 Sidelobe suppression. The range resolution is dependent on the transmitted signal bandwidth B, according to the equation:
r =
c 2B
(8.)
To avoid aliasing the sampling rate in range must be higher than the bandwidth B, since the transmitted signal varies in frequency between B/2. If a weighting window is applied an additional constant Kwin must be added, where Kwin is a constant and corresponds to the mainlobe broadening. Hence the final range resolution is given by:
r =
K win c 2B
(9.)
3.1.1
A mathematic description
Filtering the received signal r(t) by a filter with a pulse response h(t), it can be described mathematically by convolution. If the signals are sampled properly this can be described in the frequency domain according to:
r (t ) h(t ) R( f ) H ( f )
(10.)
If a weightings function is used it is applied to the signal in the frequency domain. The time delay for different frequencies is given by:
(11.)
where f is the frequency is the chirp rate

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The reference function in Figure 3-2 is in the time domain given by: h(t ) = e
i 2 ( f ct +
t 2 )
2
(12.)
The pulse compression factor is the ratio of the pulse duration before compression to its length after compression [9], i.e. Tp divided by 1/B. It is expressed as following: PCR = T p B = T p2 It represents the improvement in range resolution of the system. Figure 3-3 and Figure 3-4 show the result before and after range compression for one target return. (13.)
Figure 3-3. One received pulse from a target placed at a range of 5000 m.

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Figure 3-4. The compressed signal after range compression with a Taylor window.

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Sidelobe suppression
The primary source which arises to sidelobes are finite data processing apertures and the presence of phase errors in the SAR data. The phase errors in the SAR data are reduced by the motion compensation. By applying weight functions in azimuth and range directions the sidelobes levels can by reduced, but this will increase the mainlobe width. There are many different types of weightings functions, where the most commonly used window in SAR applications is the Taylor window. The Taylor window provides strong, selectable sidelobe suppression with a minimum broadening of the mainlobe. The discrete Taylor window is specified by three parameters N, n and SLL where, N is the window size, n is the number of nearly constant level sidelobes adjacent to the mainlobe and SLL is the sidelobe suppression in dB relative the mainlobe. A popular choice of the parameters are n=5 and SLL=-35 dB [9], which gives a mainlobe broadening of 1.34 times the mainlobe width for a rectangular window. The Taylor coefficients are given by
n 1 2m(n N / 2 + 1 / 2) Tay (n) = 1 + 2 Fm cos N m =1
(14.)
for n=0,1,,N-1, where N is the number of coefficients.

n 1 m2 / 2 (1) m +1 1 2 2 A + (i 1 / 2) i =1 Fm = n 1
2 (1 m 2 / j 2 )
j =1 j m
(15.)
where
A=
ln( B + B 2 1)
SLL 20
(16.) (17.)
2
B = 10
2 =
( n) A + (n 1 / 2) 2
2
(18.)

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In the Table 4-1 some data for common used weighting functions [10] is presented.
Table 4-1. Apperture wieghtening windows, Ref[10].
Window Rectangular
Sidelobe level, dB -13
-3 dB bandwidth, 3dB 0.892/N
Taylor, with SLL -35 dB and =5 Bartlett Hanning Hamming Blackman
-35 -27 -32 -43 -58
1.19 2/N 1.28 2/N 1.44 2/N 1.30 2/N 1.68 2/N
Figure 4-1. Impluse responses of different windows, the length is 64 and is zeropadded to get a good resolution. The Taylor window has =5 and SLL=-35 dB.
The Figure 4-1 compares different types of windows. The Taylor window has the narrowest mainlobe and the first sidelobe is of intensity -35 dB. Since a sidelobe suppression of more than -35 dB is of no concern in the most SAR applications the Taylor window with SLL of -35 dB is often used.

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Motion error compensation
Optimally the flight path is a straight line, but in reality this is not the case since some portion of deviation from the ideal path is impossible to avoid. A small disturbance from the ideal line will have a major affect on the signal phase, especially for high frequency systems, and must be compensated for. To enable this the antenna position must be measured with high accuracy, which is done by the motion sensors. In stripmap mode, compensations for the distance between the actual position and the planned position is done for every received pulse along the flight path. This is done in two steps, first by a phase and time compensation in range and secondly in azimuth by an interpolation. The first step compensates the data to the straight planned flight path. The distance along the antenna direction from the actual position to the planned flight path is calculated and compensated. The distance AB in the Figure 5-1 shows the distance which needs to be phase and time compensated. Secondly the interpolation compensates the data to the planned position along the planned flight path, given by the distance AC in the Figure 5-1. There are still some deviations left which can not be compensated for. For instance, if the platform has involuntary variations in yaw, the antenna is illuminating another area than computed which is not able to compensate for. This is crucial because it gives rise to amplitude modulation, which can be hard to deal with.
Figure 5-1. The straight line shows the planned line of flight and the curve is the actual path. The position C is the planned one and the postion B is the virtual one.

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SAR signal processing
There are many signal processing algorithms developed for SAR in stripmap mode, for instance basic SPECtral ANalysis (SPECAN) and fast convolution, described in [6]. The used algorithm must be chosen under the valid conditions.
6.1
Broadside mode
Broadside mode means the antenna is pointing perpendicular to the flight path. In this application the distance to a target is decreasing until the angle is 90 degrees and then starts increase again, see Figure 6-1. This gives a Doppler frequency that in a near region is varying linearly. It starts with positive frequency and passes through zero when the target is at an angle of 90 degrees and ends up with negative frequency. This distance difference is equivalent to a phase shift of the received pulses, hence gives this phase shift a Doppler frequency because it is the derivative of the pulse-to-pulse phase shift.
Figure 6-1 An example of the distance to a target along the fligth path, the target is placed at a distance of 5000 m at an angle of 90o relative the pulse number 2000.

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6.2
High squint mode
For conventional strip-mapping the antenna is directed perpendicular to the flight path. For some applications however, the antenna has to be squinted (e.g. missiles etc.). In squint mode the antenna is directed forward or backward, which will introduce certain phenomena that need to be taken into consideration. In this report the antenna is squinted in a forward direction. Additional squint can occur due to platform rotation, discussed in section 2 SAR fundamentals. The radar cross section of a target can be highly dependent of the illumination angle or some objects can be in radar shadow in the broadside mode. Strong side wind can also cause drift in the yaw angle which means that the antenna is squinted. The squint mode will affect the Doppler shift of the received signals. The distance between a target and the antenna is changing more rapidly hence the phase is also changing more rapidly. The Doppler frequency which is dependent of the phase shifting is then also shifting more rapidly. In the broadside application the Doppler frequency was centered around zero, but in the squint mode is it shifted up in frequency, which is shown in Figure 6-2.
Figure 6-2. An example of frequency shift broadeside mode versus squint mode.
6.3
Range-cell migration
The varying distance between the antenna and the target along the flight path is called range-cell migration (RCM). Hence will the signal from a target not lie along a straight line in the azimuth signal memory. The RCM for broadside respectively squint mode is analyzed in section 6.3.1 and 6.3.2.

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6.3.1
A mathematical description of broadside mode
During the flight path targets will be illuminated only for a limited amount of time. The size of the angle interval which the targets will be illuminated is given by the beamwidth of the antenna. In this report the beamwidth of the antenna is rather narrow (3) which gives approximately linear Doppler frequency in broadside mode. In applications with a much wider beamwidth a more complicated model must be applied. The distance to a target will vary as following:
R (t , Rs ) = v 2 t 2 + Rs2 2vtRs sin( s ) {sin( s ) 0} v 2 t 2 + Rs2
(19.)
where v is the velocity of the radar platform Rs is the slant range to the target, i.e. the closest approach t is the time along the flight path when the target is illuminated, i.e. duration of a target in antenna footprint t0. If a target is illuminated during a time t0 the time vector becomes:
t0 t t 0 . 2 2
(20.)
The equation of distance (19.) can be expanded in its Taylor series as following:
dr 1 d 2 r 2 1 d 3r 3 t+ t + t dt 2! dt 2 3! dt 3 v 2 cos 2 ( s ) 2 v3 cos 2 ( s ) sin( s ) 3 t + t = Rs v sin( s )t + 2 Rs 2 Rs2 R (t , Rs ) Rs + v 2 cos 2 ( s ) 2 t {sin( s ) 0} Rs + 2 Rs = Rs where 2v 2 cos 2 ( s ) 2 d 2R is the Doppler frequency chirp rate = dt 2 R s is the wavelength fr = (22.)
(21.)
frt 2
The assumption cos( s ) 1 is also used, because s is varying between 3 degrees.

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In broadside mode the RCM is caused by the quadratic term, terms of higher order can be neglected. An example of the varying distance in a broadside mode application is shown in Figure 6-1. The Figure 6-1 shows clearly the quadratic behavior of the RCM in the broadside mode. If the RCM is smaller than a range cell the signal will be lying in a straight line after the range compression and the RCM is only shown as a phase variation. The pulse-to-pulse phase variation, due to target distance variation is given according to: 4 2v 2 2 t + 0 (t ) = R (t , Rs ) R s where 0 is stationary phase for the target An example of the phase for a target is plotted in the Figure 6-3.
(23.)
Figure 6-3. An example of phase variation from pulse-to-pulse, a target placed perpendicular the the position of pulse number 2000.
Since the frequency is the time derivate of the phase, the frequency can be expressed according to:

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f (t )
4v 2 t R s
(24.)
An example of the Doppler frequency for a target is plotted in the Figure 6-4.
Figure 6-4. An example of the Doppler frequency along the azimuth direction, one target is placed perpendicular to the position of the pulse number 2000.
This is approximately a linear frequency term which only is valid for a certain angle interval. The phase and frequency equation are equal to their true values when t is equal to zero and the approximation becomes worse for larger values of |t|.
6.3.2
A mathematical description of high squint mode
When the antenna is squinted there will arise additional range terms. Firstly, the squint gives arise to a linear term denoted range-walk, which must be compensated for. In addition, the size of the cubic range term becomes of such order that its phase contribution must be taken into consideration. The envelope movement of the cubic term can however be neglected in most situations (compared to the size of a range cell). A mathematical description [6],[2],[3] of the influence of squint mode is described below.

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The distance to a target is given by:

R (t , Rs ) = v 2 t 2 + Rs2 2vtRs sin( s )
(25.)
where v is the velocity of the platform t is the azimuth time along the flight path Rs is the slant range at the center of the aperture s is the squint angle between rs and flight path The equation of distance (25.) can be expanded in its Taylor series [3] as following dr 1 d 2 r 2 1 d 3r 3 R (t , Rs ) Rs + t + t + t dt 2! dt 2 3! dt 3 v 2 cos 2 ( s ) 2 v3 cos 2 ( s ) sin( s ) 3 = Rs v sin( s )t + (26.) t + t 2 Rs 2 Rs2
= Rs
f dc t
frt 2
12
3 frt
where c = = wavelength fc f dc = Doppler-frequency centroid, also denoted range-walk f r = Doppler-frequency chirp rate, also denoted range-curvature = changing rate of f , also denoted range-migration f
r
r
The range-walk, -curvature and -migration can be expressed as:
f dc = fr =
dR
2 dt
2
2v
sin( s )
2 2
(27.) (28.) (29.)
2v cos ( s ) 2d R = 2 dt R s
3 3 2
= 2 d R = 6v cos ( s ) sin( s ) f r dt 3 Rs2
In broadside mode with a fairly narrow beamwidth was the distance to a target approximately constant term plus the quadratic term, because s is approximately equal to zero ( cos 2 ( s 1) ). This gives an approximately linear Doppler frequency.

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In low squint mode must only the linear and the quadratic term be considered and all the terms of higher order can be neglected in the Taylor expansion. But in high squint SAR also the cubic term must be taken into account. The range-walk causes range-cell migration of several range cells and must be removed. The removal of the range-walk can be viewed as a phase and time compensation of the received signal to a fictive flight path perpendicular to the antenna angle. The data is taken along the line Rs - v sin(s)t and is shifted in phase and time. The Figure 6-5 shows the geometry of the phase compensation. This phase removal gives the Doppler frequency along the azimuth direction lying around zero. The RCM is now much smaller than before and is caused by the quadratic and the cubic terms. The Figure 6-6 and Figure 6-7 show the signal before and after range-walk removal. The first term Rs in equation (26.) is a constant and gives rise to a phase 0 which does not change in time, hence it will not affect the Doppler frequency. The second term in equation (26.) is the linear phase term which gives rise to the Doppler-frequency centroid. This term causes the largest RCM and must be removed. The third term in equation (26.) is the same as in the broadside application, but the difference is the scaling of the fr factor. It is the one which gives rise to the linear term in the Doppler frequency. The fr factor includes the velocity to the power of two times cos 2 ( s ) , which gives the velocity along the fictive flight path. Hence is the velocity along this fictive flight path slower than in the broadside application. Due to the fact of slower velocity in the high squint application, the phase variation becomes slower.
is the changing rate of f . It does not influence The forth term in equation (26.) f r r the phase or the frequency in the middle of the antenna footprint and has maximum influence in the beginning and at the end.
In this application it can be shown that cubic term can be neglected in the envelope variation because it is much smaller then a range cell. This envelope variation [3] is expressed according to:
r3 =
v 3 cos( b ) sin( s )t 3 Rs b tan( b ) 8 8 Rs2
(30.)
where r3 is the RCM caused by the cubic term b is the beamwidth, which is the angle where the antenna amplification is -3 dB

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t is the duration of a target in the antenna footprint

Example Rs = 5000m b=3 gives: r3 1.7 m which is smaller then a range used in this report. On the other hand the phase influence of this range movement will affect and cause non-neglectable phase errors that must be taken into account. This phase term can be expressed as following:
3 =
r3
(31.)
Using the same parameters as the example above and a wavelength of 0.02 m which gives a maximal phase term of 1068 rad.
Figure 6-5. The geometry of squint mode.
After range-walk removal the signal content in a single range cell consists of targets from different distances in the original simulation geometry, see Figure 6-6 and

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Figure 6-7. Since the target Doppler rate is inversely proportional to the target slant range the Doppler rate content will also vary within each range cell, according to:
= f r =
2v 2 cos 2 ( s ) Rs
(32.)
Figure 6-6. Signal RCM before range-walk removal.
Figure 6-7. Signal RCM after range-walk removal.

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To sum it up it is important to distinguish between the phase shift caused by range cell migration and the fact that the signal does not lie along a straight line in the signal memory. If the curve the signal lie along is crossing one range cell the image quality may be significantly affected if it is not taken into account.

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Azimuth focusing
The azimuth focusing can be performed in several different ways. In this master thesis project two different methods are evaluated. The first method is a low-pass filtering method and the second is the step-transform. A method called the timevarying step-transform will also be investigated for the high squint mode. The timevarying step-transform is a further development of the step-transform performed by Sack et al and Sun et al [6], [1], [2], [3]. Before applying any algorithm the raw-data must be preprocessed. Both motion compensation and squint compensation must be performed before entering the both of the algorithms. The azimuth focusing algorithms process the data independently for each range-cell and in the end put the range cells together. The azimuth resolution of the two algorithms can be compared to the possible theoretical resolution. The azimuth resolution of a target is given by the -3 dB target response width. The sidelobe levels from a target must be suppressed more than -35 dB to be considered enough.
7.1
Preprocessing of data
The received raw-data must be preprocessed before entering the algorithms. The first thing is to compensate for motion errors. From the motion sensors the real path of flight can be calculated. The influence of the antenna being out of the ideal flight path is given by the longitude and latitude. The distance from the ideal position and the real position must be compensated. In Figure 5-1 is the actual point B and the planned is the point C. The compensation that needs to be performed is a phase and time compensation, see Figure 7-1, which is dependent of the distance difference between the real position and the planned position. The distance is calculated by taking the distance from the real position to the planned flight path in the squint direction, i.e. the distance AB in Figure 5-1 . The importance of accurate measurements is obvious because of the short wave length. The compensation is performed on a pulse-to-pulse basis, by first taking FFT of each received pulse, phase shift the signal and thereafter transform the signal back to the time-plane. Thereafter the interpolation step is performed along the azimuth direction for each row of the received data, see Figure 7-1. The interpolation is performed to create equidistant sampled pulses, which was not the case in Figure 5-1 because of the distance AC.

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The interpolation is performed with the Matlab function interp1 with cubic interpolation. The actual sample is the point A in Figure 5-1 and the interpolated and planned point is the point C.
Figure 7-1. Motion compensation in stripmap SAR.
Figure 7-2. A block diagram over the motion error compensation.
At this stage the disturbances caused by motion error are partly compensated. It is compensated as good as it can be, but it will still remain some errors compared to the ideal application. The roll, pitch and yaw will influence the angle which the targets are illuminated by the antenna. The influence of the angle to a target gives an

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amplitude variation of the signal from the antenna which hits the target, see section 2.2 SAR antenna. The influence of this can not be compensated for. In section 9 Simulation results, the influence of this is investigated. If the antenna is squinted the range-walk removal must be performed before the interpolation. The range-walk removal is performed at the same time as the phase and time compensation. The range-walk term is given by the following equation:
Rrange walk =
f dc t = vt sin( s )
(33.)
where t is the time vector along the flight path The range-walk Rrange walk distance starts at zero and grows along the flight path. As mentioned before it gives rise to range-cell migration, and in addition it gives rise to a constant Doppler offset frequency. Since the sampling frequency is not high enough it will cause aliasing. By the phase and time compensation of the range-walk this problem got solved and the range-walk is completely removed. The phase and time compensation is performed as following:
4 i ( f f + f ) R d s c comp c e
Y pha sec omp = Yreceived
(34.)
where Yreceived is the FFT of the received signal Y pha sec omp is the FFT of the phase compensated signal
f d is the normalize frequency vector f s is the sampling frequency c is the speed of light Rcomp is the distance to be phase compensated for
7.2
Theoretical resolution in azimuth direction
In the following section the azimuth resolution for real aperture radar and synthetic aperture radar is reviewed.

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7.2.1
Real aperture radar
In real aperture radar the width of the illuminated scene is dependent on the antenna beamwidth b [9], which is given by:
b K window
(35.)
where D is the length of the physical antenna. Kwindow is the mainlobe broadening caused by the aperture weighting. is the wavelength The azimuth resolution is dependent on the target distance [11] and is given by:
real = K window
R
D
(36.)
Hence becomes the azimuth resolution very poor for targets far away. Example: When using an antenna of length D=1m, a wavelength of 0.015m and a target placed at a distance of R=5000m the resolution becomes 75m (Kwin=1).
7.2.2
Synthetic aperture radar
Instead of using real aperture a synthetic aperture is created. The azimuth resolution properties are explained below. The theoretical resolution in azimuth direction is dependent on the synthetic aperture length [9].The synthetic aperture length is the length of the flight path where the target is in the antenna footprint see Figure 7-3, and is given by:
Lsynthetic K window R K window R b = D sin( s ) sin( s )
(37.)
where

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s is the squint angle relative the flight path b is the angular interval where the target is illuminated, shown in Figure 7-3.
Figure 7-3. The geometry of SAR. b is the antenna beamwidth
The synthetic beamwidth is approximately given by:
synthetic = K window
2 Lsynthetic sin( s ) cos( b ) 2
(38.)
Where the beamwidth is a factor two smaller for the synthetic aperture then it is for the real aperture. The cosinus factor indicates a broadening of the synthetic aperture beamwidth for wide angle synthetic apertures. The beamwidth times the range to the target gives the azimuth resolution as following:
synthetic = K window
R
2 Lsynthetic sin( s ) cos( b ) 2
(39.)

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R/Lsynthetic is often approximated with the following expression: R Lsynthetic

sin( s ) 2 tan( b ) 2 (40.)
and this approximation gives the resolution:
synthetic K window
4 tan( b ) cos( b ) 2 2
(41.)
which often is simplified to:
synthetic K window
4 sin( b ) 2
(42.)
For an antenna with a narrow beamwidth this correlation can be simplified to:
synthetic K window
2 b
(43.)
In the broadside application the theoretic azimuth resolution becomes D/2 independent of range if the targets are illuminated during the entire antenna footprint. This can be realized by using the equations (35.) and (43.) and the knowledge that b=b which is valid during the cited conditions. To achieve the SAR resolution, the raw-data has to be focused. In the next sections two different approaches are discussed.
7.3
The low-pass filtering algorithm
The algorithm using low-pass filtering is an unfocused SAR method. The idea of this method is to low-pass filter in the azimuth direction, this takes directly

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advantage of Doppler frequency. Since the Doppler frequency is zero when the antenna position is exactly perpendicular to the target, the position can be resolved. The phase from a target in broadside mode varies according to: 4 2v 2 2 t + 0 R s
(t ) =
R (t , Rs )
(44.)
where t is the time of the antenna foot print The Figure 7-4 shows an example of the phase variation along the flight path for a target. This is placed perpendicular to the radar platform at pulse number 2000.
Figure 7-4. Angle variation to a target placed perpendicular to radar platform at pulse 2000.
The Doppler frequency for the target is:

f (t )
4v 2 t R s
(45.)
which is illustrated in Figure 7-5.

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Figure 7-5. Doppler frequency for a target.
In a narrow neighborhood of t equal to zero the phase can be considered to be constant. Since the frequency is the derivate of the phase and the phase is a constant this will produce a frequency that is approximately zero in this neighborhood. At zero Doppler frequency is the target positioned perpendicular to the travel direction and the frequency does not change very quickly from pulse to pulse. A low-pass filter will obviously have an azimuth focusing effect. The limitation in the filtering method is to create a sharp low-pass filter with a low cut of frequency. By using the equation (45.) a theoretical azimuth resolution can be calculated. The passband spectrum of w corresponds then to the time:
t res =
2 w R s 4v 2
(46.)
where w is the cut-off frequency, i.e. w/PRF is the normalized cut-off frequency. The azimuth resolution is then given by the velocity times tres. Example: Reasonable value of the passband of the low-pass filter is frequencies around wnorm= 0.025 normalized frequency, i.e. 5 % of the spectrum. With =0.015m, Rs=5000m and v=50m/s gives an azimuth resolution of 6.0m.

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Another aspect to be considered in the filter design is that it is of no benefit to create a filter with a stopband suppression of more then -40 dB. The computational load for this method is dependent on the length of the filter and/or the filtering method.
7.4
The step-transform
The step-transform is a variation of an algorithm called basic SPECtral ANalysis (SPECAN) [6]. The step-transform applies some additional steps. The basic idea is to separate azimuth distributed targets in frequency. A Fourier analysis is then used to analyze the frequency content. The basic SPECAN de-chirps the signal in the time-domain by a reference function of different slope. Thereafter it applies a single FFT to separate the targets, see Figure 7-6. For a long flight path the FFT must be overlapped, which reduces the efficiency of the SPECAN significantly since the most data from each FFT is discarded [9]. Variations in the azimuth FM rate causes also problems, to be able to achieve constant output rate an interpolation is needed [1].
Figure 7-6. Computational stages in basic SPECAN.
The step-transform comprises a number of sub-stages, which are shown in the block diagram in Figure 7-7.

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Figure 7-7. The figure shows the block diagram of the step-transform.
The input data to the step-transform is the motion compensated and range compressed signal, which is divided into subapertures along the azimuth direction for every range-cell. The de-ramping step comprises an operation by a reference function. The reference function has the opposite slope but the same rate as the target returns. There will be for each target a sinusoid left with a constant frequency, which is dependent of the placement of the target. Since the Doppler slope varies for different ranges the reference function will also be different. The rate is given by:
K =
2v 2 R s
[Hz/s]
(47.)
The target return for a target placed in a time position ttar=m, see Figure 7-8, is given by:
S (t ) = e iK (t ttar )
(48.)
where t t t tar 0 t t tar + 0 2 2 t0 is the time the target is in the antenna footprint. m is the target position measured in sample points. 1 = is the time between adjacent samples PRF

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Figure 7-8. The target scene, where one target is placed at m.
Multiplying the target return with the reference function placed at tref=n according to:
S (t )* = e
iK ( t t ref ) 2
=e
iK ( t n ref ) 2
(49.)
gives the following result:
S (t ) S (t )* = e iK (t ttar ) e e iK ( n
2 2
+ iK ( t t ref ) 2
= e iK ( t m ) e iK ( t n ) =
m 2 2 + 2 t ( m n ))
(50.)
Since the two terms m22 and n22 in equation (50.) are independent of time they will be constant. The only time dependent term is 2t(m-n) which is a linear relationship dependent of the displacement of target returns. The relationship between target placement and the frequency is given by:
f = K ( m n)
(51.)
Converting the equation (50.) to discrete time by setting t=k+n-T1/2 where

T1 is the length of a subaperture

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k is the sample number in a subaperture
S (t ) S (t )* = e iK ( 2 k
( n m )) iK ( n 2 2 + T1 n ) iK ( m 2 2 T1 m ) iK ( 2 mn2 )
(52.)
The frequency relationship between targets depends only on the first term. The remaining phase terms are:
= K ((n 2 2 + T1 n) + (m 2 2 T1 m) + (2mn2 ))
(53.)
When the de-ramping is performed a FFT is applied, which is called Coarseresolution FFT (CRFFT). The CRFFTs can be viewed as a set of band-pass filters, which are dividing the frequency spectrum into several pass-bands. Each output bin in CRFFT corresponds to one band-pass filter, see Figure 7-9. To avoid sidelobe leakage a Taylor window with sidelobe suppression of -35 dB is used.
Figure 7-9. The bandpass filtering effect of the CRFFTs, the normalized frequency spans from -PRF/2 to PRF/2.
One disadvantage of the step-transform is that the subapertures need to be overlapped. The requirement of overlapping the subapertures arise since the FFT and the de-ramping consist of different types of regions in time-frequency space, see Figure 7-10. The FFT occupies a rectangular region in time-frequency space while the de-ramping procedure produces a parallelogram shaped processing region. Thus, one FFT can not produce data for all targets return in a particular processing region.

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This cited problem is solved by overlapping the subapertures, unfortunately it reduces the efficiency of the algorithm.
Figure 7-10. The upper figure shows the targets return before de-chirping. The lower figure shows the de-ramped target returns.
The length of the CRFFT corresponds to the number of samples in a subaperture. The signal energy from a target will be lying in different frequency bin in several CRFFT, see Figure 7-11. The difference in number of frequency bins between two adjacent CRFFT is given by:
H = N 1 N 2 K2
(54.)
where N1 is the number of samples in a subaperture N2 is the number of samples between the centers of two adjacent subapertures.

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Figure 7-11. The de-ramping proces in the step-transform.
Using the x-axis as the frequency axis and the y-axis as the subaperture number the data is placed along the diagonals, according to H. Figure 7-12 shows how the data is placed along the diagonals.

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Figure 7-12. The energy from three targets is along the diagonals, where white is high amplitude and black is low amplitude.
The value of N1 and N2 must be carefully chosen, there are several things that need to be fulfilled [2]. The requirements are listed below: 1. The range curvature creates range cell migration and the data from one target must be lying in the same range resolution cell. I.e. the range cell migration cause by the range curvature must for that reason be less then a half resolution cell. Thereby the subaperture length is limited by the following equation:
T1 rrcr bv
(55.)
where
rrcr = c is the size of a range cell 2 fs
2. The length of the subapertures, N1 must be a power of two, to be able to apply the efficient FFT. 3. The subapertures must be sufficiently overlapped to avoid frequency aliasing.

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To obtain full resolution the data has to be chosen for a target from the CRFFT output bins and perform second FFT, which is called fine-resolution FFT (FRFFT). As mentioned before the data is lying along diagonals with a slope H. The data along these diagonals will be sent to the FRFFT. It is explained in [2] that the H must be an integer to avoid amplitude modulation between successive subapertures. To be able to keep the H value to an integer for the different ranges some of the parameters in the equation for the H must be changed. This problem arises due to the fact of the variation of the chirp rate along different ranges and thereby variation of the K. The length of a subaperture must be a power of two, to be able to use the efficient FFT, so the N1 value can not be changed. The only parameter that can be changed is the N2 value i.e. the overlap between subapertures. But one disadvantage of changing the overlap comes up when choosing the data from the final FRFFT. To come around this problem the data is delayed so that the data will be lying along vertical lines. The displacement is performed by multiplying each row with a delay increasing linearly with subaperture number. By delaying to rows the H does not need to be an integer and the overlap between subapertures can be kept constant. The delay can be expressed as the following function:
2i (l 1) Hf N 1 d
delay = e
(56.)
where l is the subaperture number f d is the normalized frequency vector The delay is just a complex operation and is performed before the CRFFT. The data after the delay is shown in Figure 7-13.

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Figure 7-13. The signal after the CRFFT from three targets with the delay included.
Before the FRFFT is performed on each column, the data has to be phase corrected. The phase term does not depend on time (or sample) and must be canceled. The phase term is dependent on the subaperture center position and target position. It is constant in every subaperture and does not contain information to separate targets in the FRFFT. The phase term is applied on each row and is updated for each subaperture. The phase term is:
* = K (n 2 2 nT1 )
where K is the chirp rate n is the center position of the subaperture T1 = N 1 is the length of a subaperture The phase compensation is performed by multiplying each subaperture with the conjugate of the phase term, i.e.
e i * = e
K ( n 22 nT ) 1
(57.)
(58.)

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The FFT is applied in the columns which contain valid data. The number of columns which are containing valid data is dependent on the length of the scene in azimuth direction and the slope of the Doppler frequency. Because of the subapertures are overlapped each FRFFT also contains data which is discarded. The quantity of discarded data is determined by the overlapping factor, which is given by:
= 1
N2 N1
(59.)
An overlapping factor of zero is no overlap and an overlapping factor close to one is close to full overlap. The overlapping factor is usually larger than 0.6 [6], to be able to suppress the sidelobe levels. However every target will appear in multiple in the final image, this is cause by the sidelobe leakage, which leads to ghosts see Figure 7-14. For that reason the sidelobe suppression must be kept high and the subapertures must be overlapped to get low amplitude of the ghost targets.
Figure 7-14. Multiple target reurn after FRFFT from a single target return.
The final image is created by picking appropriate data from the FRFFTs. The frequency spectrum of the valid part of the FRFFTs contains a frequency spectrum of PRF Hz. The frequency spectrum of each FRFFT is containing one divided by T2 Hz. Also in the FRFFT the signal is windowed by a Taylor window with sidelobe suppression of -35 dB.

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But which data is the appropriate and which data must be discarded? There is a relation between frequency and azimuth position of the targets after the FRFFT. Hence by ensuring there are no gaps in the frequency domain the whole azimuth axis is covered. The output bins of one CRFFT covers PRF Hz, and one FRFFT covers PRF/N2 Hz. The new frequency substance in every FRFFT is PRF/N1 Hz. A target shifted one second is shifted K Hz i.e. the Doppler-frequency rate fr multiplied with the time. The data must be selected from frequency-frequency space the along, where the x-axis is the frequency axis from the CRFFT and the y-axis is the frequency axis from the FRFFT. The appropriate data will be lying along diagonals with slope N1/N2 , the slope means the number of FRFFTs for one frequency spectrum of PRF/N2 Hz, see Figure 7-15. Example N1/N2 is equal to three, from one FRFFT that covers PRF/N2 Hz only PRF/N1 Hz is taken and the remaining data will be discarded [4]. The length in azimuth direction of every diagonal is given by:
X azimuth = v ,[m] N 2 K
(60.)
Since the distance of every diagonal is dependent on the slope K which changes along the range the diagonals will cover different distance in the azimuth direction. Hence alter the number of samples between different range-gaps and thereby also the azimuth resolution. For a short flight path the azimuth resolution is by default different due to the fact of different Doppler frequency width, i.e. different angular interval. The fact of fewer samples per meter for high ranges increasers the difference in resolution between near and far ranges.

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Figure 7-15. The signal after the second FFT, with three target.
A target located in the middle of the scene in azimuth direction becomes located in the middle in the frequency-frequency space. The data can be chosen along the diagonals, but since the frequency-frequency matrix is discrete it is impossible to avoid amplitude difference between targets, of the same received energy. The difference in amplitude between two targets can be as large as 3 dB, since the energy of a target can be equally divided between two samples. The maximum length of the scene is dependent on the radar platform speed, the PRF and the maximum chirp rate i.e. the maximum K value. Since two targets separated one second is separated in frequency by K Hz, the entire scene spans a spectrum of PRF Hz. The maximum time of the scene is given by:
t max = PRF K max
(61.)
where Kmax is the maximum rate which is the rate in the closest range-gap, (Rs)min
K max =
2v 2 ( Rs ) min
(62.)
The maximum length of the flight path is then given by:

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Lmax = t max v =
PRF ( Rs ) min 2v
(63.)
To increase the length of the scene the PRF must be increased or the speed of the radar platform must be decreased, since the distance to a target and the wavelength are constants. Instead of changing parameters in the data collection the data can be up sampled before entering the step-transform. Up sampling by a factor two gives a target scene twice as large. If the length of the flight path is longer, the frequency spectrum will start from the beginning again. If the subaperture is short enough it will still be able to separate the two targets after the CRFFT. This can be done because the targets which cover the same frequency bins are separated in different subapertures. The Figure 7-16 illustrates that two targets separated by a long distance are covering almost the same frequency bins. The data to the FRFFT has to be chosen for a target along these diagonals and should only covers the bins where the amplitude is high for a specific target.
Figure 7-16. An example of two target which are separated by a long distance and cover almost the same frequency bins but are lying in different subapertures.

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7.4.1
The step-transform in high squint mode
In the references [6], [1],[2] and [3] the step-transform was developed to handle satellite-data in high squint mode. The step-transform will now be analyzed to see how it deals with radar data from an aircraft. The used parameters in the satellite application used in [2] are given in the Table 7-1.
Table 7-1. Parameters used in satellite application in [2].
Parameter PRF s fo R rc v b Target 1 Target 2 Lsynthetic azimuth
Description Pulse repetition frequency Squint angle Carrying frequency Range Range cell Speed of the radar platform Beamwidth of the antenna Azimuth position of the target 1 Azimuth position of the target 2 Length of synthetic array Beamwidth at range R
Value 1300 30o 1.3e9 1032.8 10 6600 1o 0 18e3 10e3 18e3
Unit Hz Hz km m m/s m m m m
The parameters used in the airborne squint mode are given by the Table 7-2 and Table 8-1.
Table 7-2. Parameters used in the squint mode.
Parameter PRF s R Target 1 Target 2 Lsynthetic azimuth
Description Pulse repetition frequency Squint angle Range Azimuth position of the target 1 Azimuth position of the target 2 Length of synthetic array Beamwidth at range R
Value 500 30o 5000 0 500 150 500
Unit Hz m m m m m
The input is the pre-compensated data which has been divided into subapertures. To de-chirp the subapertures a reference signal of the opposite slope was used. Since the Doppler frequency slope varies along a range-cell, different slope must be used to de-chirp the subapertures. There after the first FFT (CRFFT) is performed and the

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data is placed in a matrix. In broadside mode was the cubic-phase neglected and the data for a target was lying along a diagonal in the matrix. In high squint mode is the data of a target lying along a curve in the subaperture frequency plane. The data will be lying off the diagonal by a factor, which consists of a constant term times the subaperture number to the power of two [3]. The factor does not depend on the target azimuth position in the satellite application. Figure 7-17 shows the signal after the CRFFT, the signal energy for three targets are lying along the white curves.
Figure 7-17. The signal after the CRFFT in squint mode, with three targets.
In the application used in this report, aircrafts, the data after the CRFFT from a target was not lying as explained in the satellite application. The curves in the subaperture frequency space had different slopes, which were depending on the azimuth position. In the satellite application had all the curves the same slopes independently of target azimuth position. Compare Figure 7-13 and Figure 7-18, which are the CRFFT with the delay included. The signals should be lying along the columns, which is the case in the broadside mode and for the high squint satellite application. But this was not the case in the high squint mode in the aircraft application, the columns are not completely straight.

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Figure 7-18. The CRFFT after the delay, for high squint mode with aircraft radar data.
This arises due to the fact of a larger variation of the cubic term fr between two target separated in azimuth, using data from aircraft compared to the satellite data. The Doppler frequency of two targets separated in azimuth are plotted in Figure 7-19 to Figure 7-22 for the satellite respectively aircraft application. In Figure 7-20 and Figure 7-22 are the Doppler curve plotted to be comparable. The two targets are separated by a beamwidth in respectively application.
Figure 7-19. Doppler frequency for target 1 and 2, separated by the beamwidth in satellite application.

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Figure 7-20. The two Doppler curves for the two targets from the Figure 7-19.
Figure 7-21. Doppler frequency for target 1 and 2, separated by the beamwidth in aircraft application.

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Figure 7-22. The two Doppler curves for the two targets from the Figure 7-21.
The Doppler curves in the aircraft application distinguish much more than in the satellite application, for targets separated in azimuth. This variation of the Doppler frequency influences the result after the CRFFT. The data along the curves in Figure 7-18 will contain undesirable amplitude modulation. The phase along the curve will also be destroyed and the phase correction before the FRFFT is impossible to perform with respect to all targets. Hence can not the data be focused by applying the second FFT. The conclusions are that the data for the targets are not lying along the columns for the high squint mode the phase of the data will thereby be destroyed. Both by the amplitude modulation and variation in the cubic term which mean the focusing performed in the FRFFT will not be obtained. For the reason of large variation of the cubic term along a range-gap the step-transform can not be used for radar data from aircrafts in high squint mode.

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Implementation
In section 8.1 and 8.2 the implementation of the step-transform and the low-pass filter algorithm are explained. The used system parameters are given in Table 8-1.
Table 8-1. Used parameters in the broadside mode.
Parameter c PRF s fs fo B Tp Rmin Rmax r v L b Targetrange Targetazimuth
Description Speed of light Pulse repetition frequency Squint angle Sampling frequency Carrying frequency Bandwidth Transmitted pulse length Minimum range Maximum range Range resolution Speed of the radar platform Length of the flight path Beamwidth of the antenna Range distance to the target Azimuth position of the target
Value 3e8 1000 90o 20e6 15.6e9 19e6 10e-6 3840 7673 9.4 52.4 215 5.6o 5000 104.8
Unit m/s Hz Hz Hz Hz s m m m m/s m m m
8.1
Implementing the filter algorithm
To use the low-pass filter algorithm a filter need to be designed. Both infinite impulse response (IIR) filters and finite impulse response (FIR) filters were tested. The primary advantage of IIR filters over FIR filters are that a filter of lower order can be used [12] and still give a satisfying frequency response. One disadvantage of IIR filters are that they give rise to a non-linear phase, but the signal phase after the filtering is of no concern. They also have an infinite long transient and the FIR filters have not. The tested IIR filters are Butterworth, Chebyshev type I and Elliptic with an order of six to twelve. Frequency plots of the filters of order eight and a cut-off frequency of 0.05 normalized frequency are shown in the Figure 8-1 and Figure 8-2. Several

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different numbers of filter-taps and cut-off frequencies were also tested, but did not improve the result. Instead of using IIR filters, FIR filters were tested. They gave a nice frequency response similar to the IIR filters, but the FIR filter order must be as large as 200. Since the computational load of the filter function in Matlab is increasing when the order of the filter is increasing, the filter function is not efficient for filters of large order. Instead the function fftfilt was used which only can be applied for FIR filters. Fftfilt uses the efficient FFT based method of overlap-add, which filters in the frequency domain by multiplying the frequency responses of the signal and the filter. It gives the same result as using the filter function but is more efficient. FIR filters of order 256 and a cut-off frequency of 0.006 normalized frequency were chosen. Filter with lower cut-off frequency and of higher order did not improve the final result.
Figure 8-1. Some different types of filters, Cheby2, Butter and Ellip of order 8 and FIR (Taylor, SLL=-35db) is of order 256.

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Figure 8-2. Zoomed version of the Figure 8-1.
To be noticed is that the FIR filter has no ripple in the pass band which the IIR filters have. To be able to create more smooth IIR filters the cut-off frequency has to be increased. The used FIR filters apply window linear phase FIR filter design and by default the Hamming window is applied [12]. Some other different types of FIR filters were also created by different windows, plotted in the Figure 8-3. The Taylor window with sidelobe suppression of -35 dB was chosen since it has the narrowest mainlobe with acceptable sidelobe. Another drawback of the FIR filter is the large delay, the delay is half the length of the filter. Hence did the used FIR filter give a loss of 6.7 m in the end of the scene. To avoid this, zeros need to be added in the end of the signal.

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Figure 8-3. Some different types of FIR filters of length 256.
8.2
Implementing the step-transform
To implement the step-transform the length of the subapertures and the overlap must be chosen. They must fulfill the criterion listed in the section 7.4 The step-transform. The subaperture length was chosen according to equation (55.):
T1 rrcr c = 1 .4 s b v 2 f s b v
which gives N1 < 1400 samples with the parameters from Table 8-1. The length of the subapertures was chosen to 256 samples and the center of the adjacent subaperture was placed 85 samples away. The overlap factor became 0.67 which is enough to avoid aliasing. The length of the FRFFT became 128 after zeropadding to obtain a length of a power of two. The diagonal in the FRFFT has a slope of 3 and the discarded data is thereby 67%.

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Simulation results
To evaluate the performance of the algorithms, one point target is illuminated during some different flight paths to create raw-data. The flight paths are both simulated and taken from real measurements. The received data is preprocessed and applied to the low-pass filtering algorithm and the step-transform. The evaluation is performed in the view of considering real conditions. Which parameter or combination of parameters will influence the final image? The amplitude is plotted for the range-cell where the target is placed. The final result of the algorithms is compared to the final result from the ideal flight path. The comparison of the results is performed by compare sidelobe level and mainlobe width. The deviations which can occur are deviations in range direction, azimuth direction and antenna pointing direction. The target is placed at a range of 5000 m and of an azimuth 104.8 m, see Figure 9-1. The ideal flight path is along the x-axis and the antenna is pointing perpendicular to the x-axis, i.e. in y-direction. This can also be expressed as a complex number, where imaginary part is the y-direction and the x-direction is the real part. The radar platform is placed at an altitude which is given by the z position. Comparison between the low-pass filtering algorithm and the step-transform will be done to see how they handle deviations.
Figure 9-1. Target placement in the simulation model.

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9.1
Simulations of straight flight path in broadside mode
In this section are the two methods evaluated with a single point target return, which is illuminated during a straight line flight path with no deviations. The theoretical azimuth resolution of a point target can be calculated from the equation (43.) in section 7.2. The resolution of a target is given by the -3 dB target response width. For a point target is the theoretical resolution equal to 0.27m with the parameters given in Table 8-1.
9.1.1 Low-pass filter algorithm
Filtering the signal with the IIR filters gave rise to ripples along the right side of the peak shown in Figure 9-2, which is not acceptable. It seams like the IIR filters did not handle the combination of low cut-off frequency and long series of data. By using the Taylor FIR filter the with sidelobe suppression of -35 db and =5 the mainlobe became narrower, therefore the Taylor FIR filter was chosen. The result is plotted in Figure 9-3 to Figure 9-5.
Figure 9-2. An example of the result using IIR-filters, to the right of the peak the ripples have come up.

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Figure 9-3. The result of the low-pass filter algorithm and a zoomed version is plotted in Figure 9-4.
Figure 9-4. The zoomed peak in Figure 9-3.
The azimuth resolution in the filtering algorithm is 6.5 m, according to Figure 9-5. The theoretical SAR azimuth resolution is 0.27 m which means that the azimuth resolution is about 24 times worse. The achieved azimuth resolution is enough to discover for instance a ship on opened water, but will not discover a car on a road. Hence is the achieved azimuth resolution enough in some applications.

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Figure 9-5. Shows the zoomed peak of a target processed by the filtering algorithm.
9.1.2
Step-transform
The final result of the azimuth focusing is plotted in the Figure 9-6 and Figure 9-7.
Figure 9-6. Shows the azimuth direction for a range-cell, one point target is illuminated.

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Figure 9-7. The figure is showing the magnification of the spike in Figure 9-6.
The azimuth resolution in the step-transform is 0.28 m, see Figure 9-8. This is close to the theoretic resolution which is 0.27m.
Figure 9-8. Shows the zoomed peak of a target processed by the step transform.

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9.1.3
Resolution comparison
In Figure 9-9 and Figure 9-10 are the result of the algorithms compared. The sidelobe suppression is higher for the low-pass filter algorithm then the steptransform. The mainlobe is much wider for the low-pass filter algorithm compared to the step-transform.
Figure 9-9.Shows the azimuth resulotion for a single target return. The dashed line is the low-pass filter algorithm and the solid line is the step-transform.

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Figure 9-10. Zoomed version of Figure 9-9.
9.2
Simulations of motion deviations in broadside mode
The first tested deviation is along the y-axis, which is compensated with a phase and time shift. To be noticed before the evaluation is that this deviation should have a small influence. Because if the distance between the ideal position and the actual position is measured correctly, it can be exactly compensated when the target is placed at an angle of exactly 90 degrees. But it can not be exactly compensated for other angles, it does not influence much since the angle to the target is not varying much. This phenomenon arises because it is the perpendicular distance which is measured, and not the actual one, see Figure 9-11. The actual distance difference can not be measure in reality because the target position is unknown. In reality there are also several targets and therefore it also varies. To be able to view this phenomenon a constant level of 50 meters is added to the flight path in the y direction. The influence of this phenomenon can be discovered in the Doppler frequency in the azimuth direction. It gives an additional nonlinearity which also is zero when the Doppler is zeros but increases for higher Doppler frequencies, i.e. increases when the angle to the target differs from 90 degree. This is realized because the mismatch of the compensated distance is larger for a target with an angle that differs from 90 degrees. The figure below shows the Doppler frequency. The distance A which is the planned one is not equal to real

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distance B plus the phase compensated distance C. Compare to the distance AB in Figure 5-1. Because it is zero for zero Doppler frequency it will not affect the lowpass filtering algorithm.
Figure 9-11. The right figure shows the missmatch Doppler frequency, the left figure shows the distance to a target, where B is the real distance, C is the phase compensated distance and the distance A is the planned distance.
This applied deviation is not realistic, but it is a phenomenon which exists. But for longer flight path when target angle differs more a much smaller deviation in y direction will affect the mismatch in Doppler frequency. The result for the steptransform is shown in the Figure 9-12.
Figure 9-12. The solid line is the result of the disturbed focusing with the deviation of 50 m and the dashed is the result with no deviation.

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The result of the mismatch gives a broadening of the mainlobe. The problem arises in the de-chirp processing step, due to the fact of mismatch between de-chirp reference signal and the Doppler frequency. The conclusions are if the beamwidth is narrow and the y deviation not too large, y deviations can be completely compensated. In the application used in this report and with flight path measurements from reality it will not be any problem to compensate for deviations in the y direction. Two other types of deviations in a sideways direction which are of more realistic size were also tested, the deviations are: 1a)10isin(6t) 1b)10it where t is the time 0-1 along the flight path The flight paths are plotted in Figure 9-13 and Figure 9-14. [m] [m]
Figure 9-13. The dashed line is the tested deviation in 1a. The solid line is the ideal flight path.

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Figure 9-14. The dashed line is the tested deviation in 1b. The solid line is the ideal flight path.
The final result for the deviation in 1a is plotted in Figure 9-15 and Figure 9-16 for the low-pass filter algorithm. The result of the step-transform is presented in Figure 9-17 and Figure 9-18. The final result of 1b becomes similar to the one in 1a with the both algorithms.
Figure 9-15. The final result of 1a, the solid line is the the result without deviation and the dashed line is with.

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Figure 9-16. The zoomed version of Figure 9-15.
Figure 9-17. The final result of 1a, the solid line is the the result without deviation and the dashed line is with.

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Figure 9-18. Zoomed version of Figure 9-17.
The second deviation that can arise is deviation along the flight path (x direction). This corresponds to a variation of the speed of the radar platform. As explained in the preprocessing steps this is compensated by interpolation along the azimuth direction. The Doppler frequency spectrum that is covered is about half of the whole spectrum with the used parameters in Table 8-1. The Doppler frequency must be kept low normally around the half of the maximum to avoid aliasing. Two different deviations of the platform velocity were tested. The tested deviations were a bit larger than what will occur in reality. The tested deviations are: 2a)10sin(6t) 2b)10t [m/s] [m/s]
The velocity is with no deviation constant and equal to 52.4 m/s, the velocity in 2a and 2b are plotted in Figure 9-19 and Figure 9-20.

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Figure 9-19. The velocity of the radar platfrom using the deviation in 2a).
Figure 9-20. The velocity of the radar platfrom using the deviation in 2b).
The interpolation gives very good results which mean it handles non-uniform samples along the flight path well. The results were almost unaffected and similar to the Figure 9-15 to Figure 9-18 with the two algorithms. To see how variations in both x-direction and y-direction affect the final result it was also tested. They are combined as following: 3a ) 10i sin(6t ) + 10 sin(6t )

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The results are even with these large deviations from the planned flight path very good, i.e. the sidelobes and the mainlobe are unaffected. The results are equal to the Figure 9-15 to Figure 9-18. Thus can deviations from ideal flight path be compensated and will not affect the final result of the algorithms. In all these deviations have the antenna pointing direction assumed to be nonaffected, i.e. constant 90 degrees. But in reality the rotation of the antenna causes amplitude modulation of the received signal, according to the antenna amplification. The transmitting and receiving angle have the antenna amplification according to the Figure 2-12 in the antenna section. Since it both transmits and receives the final amplitude of the signal is the antenna amplification to the power of two. To investigate how the crab angle influences the final results different crab rotations were tested. A variation between two or three degrees is absolutely realistic. The tested rotations are:
4a ) 10 sin(6t ) 4b) 2 0 sin(6t ) 4c) 10 e1.8t 10 4d ) 2 0 sin( 24t )
The Figure 9-21 to Figure 9-24 show the amplitudes for the received signal with the deviation above. The solid line is the received signal from the target from ideal flight path. The dashed line is the received signal from the target with the deviations 4a. to 4d.

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Figure 9-21. The solid line is the received amplitude of the target with ideal fligth path. The dashed line is the received amplitude with the deviation 4a.
Figure 9-22. The solid line is the received amplitude of the target with ideal fligth path. The dashed line is the received amplitude with the deviation 4b.

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Figure 9-23. The solid line is the received amplitude of the target with ideal fligth path. The dashed line is the received amplitude with the deviation 4c.
Figure 9-24. The solid line is the received amplitude of the target with ideal fligth path. The dashed line is the received amplitude with the deviation 4d.
The result of the low-pass filter algorithm is unaffected of the deviation 4a. to 4d except of loss in the amplitude. If the antenna amplification is low at the point when the radar platform is perpendicular to the target it gives loss in the amplitude, otherwise it will not be affected. The loss of the amplitude is equal to the actual antenna amplification compared to the ideal one.

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The step-transform affects of the deviations and the results are plotted in Figure 9-25 to Figure 9-28. In the step-transform the crab angle variation influences much more. It gives rise to broadening of the mainlobe and worse sidelobe suppression. It can only handle crab angle deviation up to one degree without producing a worse result (less sidelobe suppression or mainlobe widening).
Figure 9-25. The result using the step-transform with the crab deviation in 4a.
Figure 9-26. The result using the step-transform with the crab deviation in 4b.

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Figure 9-27. The result using the step-transform with the crab deviation in 4c.
Figure 9-28. The result using the step-transform with the crab deviation in 4d.
To expose the step-transform for a virtual situation the crab rotation combines with the deviations in x-direction and y-direction. The deviations 4b, 1a, and 2b are added and 4c, 1a and 2b are added, the result is plotted in Figure 9-29 and Figure 9-30.

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Figure 9-29. The zoomed result of step-transform with the deviations 4b, 1a and 2b.
Figure 9-30. The zoomed result of step-transform with the deviations 4c, 1a and 2b.
The result becomes worse when adding deviations in y- and x-direction. The conclusion of this is that the step-transform handles crab rotation poorly. To see how the algorithms are working in reality, motion measurements from real flight paths are tested. The flight path is of length 8300 m, some parts of it are used for the valuation, plotted in Figure 9-31 and Figure 9-32. The parts with the largest variations in the crab angle were selected. The longitude, latitude positions and the

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crab angle are plotted in the Figure 9-33 and Figure 9-34 respectively Figure 9-38 and Figure 9-39. The results when using deviation taken from measurement from reality are plotted in Figure 9-35 and Figure 9-39 for the step-transform and in Figure 9-36 and Figure 9-40. The result is not much worse than the ideal one. The mainlobe is a little bit wider for the step-transform but the sidelobes are strongly suppressed. Thus handles the step-transform and the low-pass algorithm deviations from ideal flight path well.
Figure 9-31. An example of a real flight path.
Figure 9-32. The measured crab angle in the real flight path given in Figure 9-31.

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Figure 9-33. The solid line is the ideal fligth path and the dashed line is the actual.
Figure 9-34. The used crab angle in experiment one.

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Figure 9-35. The dashed line is the result of the step-transform when using the deviations plotted in Figure 9-33 and Figure 9-34. The solid line is the result with ideal flight path.
Figure 9-36. The dashed line is the result of the low-pass algorithm when using the deviations plotted in Figure 9-33 and Figure 9-34. The solid line is the result with ideal flight path.

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Figure 9-37. The solid line is the ideal fligth path and the dashed line is the actual.
Figure 9-38. The used crab angle in experiment two.

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Figure 9-39. The dashed line is the result of the step-transform when using the deviations plotted in Figure 9-37 and Figure 9-38. The solid line is the result with ideal flight path.
Figure 9-40. The dashed line is the result of the low-pass algorithm when using the deviations plotted in Figure 9-37 and Figure 9-38. The solid line is the result with ideal flight path.

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9.3
Example of target scene in broadside mode
The illuminated scene has stationary point targets placed shown in Figure 9-41. The target scene is illuminated during a straight flight path and the data is processed by using the two algorithms, the result is show in Figure 9-43 to Figure 9-45. The used parameters are shown in Table 8-1.
Figure 9-41. The illuminated scene has the targets placed in a certain pattern, plotted with axis equal.

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Figure 9-42. Zoomed version of the middle SAR in Figure 9-41.
Figure 9-43. The final result using the low-pass filtering algorithm, plotted with axis equal.

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Figure 9-44. Zoomed version of the middle SAR of the filter algorithm in Figure 9-43, plotted with axis equal.

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Figure 9-45. The final result using the step-transform, plotted with axis equal.
Figure 9-46. Zoomed version of the middle SAR of the step-transform Figure 9-45, plotted with axis equal.

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The result of the step-transform is nothing to complain about the letters can easily be interpreted. When using the low-pass filtering algorithm the letters become harder to be interpreted, the letters are spread out over the image.
9.4
Simulations of motion deviations in squint mode
The filtering algorithm was tested in squint mode with an angle of 30 degrees relative the flight path. Since the step-transform was not able to handle squint mode the result will be compared to filtering algorithm in broadside mode. Since the Doppler frequency is varying slower after the squint compensation, the PRF was decreased. In the 30 degree squint application the Doppler variation was decreased by a factor of two and so for that reason the PRF was decreased by a factor of two. Thereby will the Doppler spectrum containing the same frequency spectrum as in the broadside mode. The resolution became the same as in broadside mode which was 6.5 m, plotted in Figure 9-47 and Figure 9-48. The deviations tested in broadside mode were also tested in squint mode using the low pass filtering algorithm and gave almost the same result. It handles deviations in crab angle without any problems, given the deviations are realistic, i.e. plus minus two or three degrees and of low pass characteristic. The algorithm was more sensitive to deviations perpendicular to the flight direction than in the broadside mode. This is cause by the projection which is performed in the squint direction to the planned line of flight, see Figure 9-49. This gives rise to a large spread of the samples along the flight path due to the fact of high squint angle.

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Figure 9-47. The result of the filter algorithm in squint of 30 degrees.
Figure 9-48. The zoomed peak of Figure 9-47.

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Figure 9-49. In broadside mode is the distance B compensated, in squint mode is the distance A compensated.

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10
Computational load analysis
The signal processing is divided into two blocks, preprocessing of data and azimuth focusing. The preprocessing of data is equivalent for the two used algorithms. The data is of length Lran in range direction and Lazi in azimuth direction (i.e number of samples). The time and phase compensations needed assumed to be precomputed and stored, the data selection is assumed to require no computations. One FFT of length M uses
M log 2 ( M ) complex operations [9]. 2
The motion error compensation demands for every azimuth position Lran complex operations for phase and time compensation in the frequency domain. The range compression demands also Lran complex operations in the frequency domain. One FFT and one IFFT of length Lran needs also to be applied on the signal for every azimuth sample. The totally computational load for the range compression and time and phase compensation can be expressed as: Lazi ( Lran log 2 ( Lran ) + 2 Lran )
(64.)
10.1
The computational load of the step-transform
The step-transform includes four processing steps which contribute to the computational load, which are performed for all range-cells. The processing steps are the de-ramping, the CRFFT, the phase correction and the FRFFT. The length of the subapertures which is N1 and the number of subapertures are assumed to by a power of two. The number of subapertures in one range-cell is Lsub which is given by:
Lsub = Lazi N2
(65.)
where N2 is the number of samples between the centers of two adjacent subapertures.

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The de-ramping demands LsubN1 operations, the CRFFT demands Lsub
N1 log 2 ( N 1 ) , 2 the phase correction demands LsubN1 operations and the FRFFT demands L N 1 sub log 2 ( Lsub ) operations. The total computational load becomes: 2
N N Lran Lsub N1 + 1 log 2 ( N1 ) + N1 + 1 log 2 ( Lsub ) = 2 2 N Lran Lsub 2 N1 + 1 (log 2 ( N1 ) + log 2 ( Lsub )) 2
(66.)
This result can be compared to the result of using a single FFT, the computational load can be expressed as following:
L Lran Lazi + azi log 2 ( Lazi ) 2
(67.)
10.2
The computational load of the low-pass filter algorithm
The low-pass filtering algorithm applies the filter in the frequency domain, using the overlap-add method. The number of complex operations is depending of the length of the used FFTs. Using a FFT of length LFFT and a filter of length Lfilt the number of data blocks becomes:
M = Lazi L filt + 1
LFFT
(68.)
which is chosen to minimize the computational load. The filter is turned into the frequency domain which demands
LFFT log 2 ( LFFT ) 2 operations, which only has to be calculated once. The subsequences are first turned L into the frequency domain which demands M FFT log 2 ( LFFT ) operations. Then the 2 subsequences and multiplied by the filter which demands MLFFT operations. Finally L the results are turned back to the time domain which demands M FFT log 2 ( LFFT ) 2

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operations, all these stages are performed for every range-cell and the total computational load can be expressed as:
Lran ( MLFFT log 2 ( LFFT ) + MLFFT ) + LFFT log 2 ( LFFT ) 2
(69.)
10.3
Computational load comparison
By using the Matlabs function flops the number of floating point operations can be measured. In section 9.3 Example of target scene in broadside mode the number of floating point operations was counted by the Matlab function for the two algorithms. Comparison between the two algorithms ended up with the result that the steptransform has 9 time higher computational complexity then the low-pass filter algorithm. A comparison can be performed by using the equations (66.) and (69.) to calculate the computational load for the example in section 9.3. The used parameters are given in Table 10-1.
Table 10-1. Parameters used in example scene in section 9.3.
Parameter M LFFT Lfilt Lsub N1 N2 Lazi
Value 48 256 256 48 256 85 4096
The computational load of the step-transform becomes: 256 Lran 48 2 256 + (log 2 (256) + log 2 (48)) = 108042 Lran 2 The computational load of the low-pass filter algorithm becomes:
1 + 2 48 Lran ( ) log 2 (256) + 48 256 = 12676 Lran 2

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This means that the step-transform uses about 8.5 times more computational load then the low-pass filter algorithm. This result is almost similar to the result when using Matlabs flops function.

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Conclusions
The main thing in this thesis was to investigate two different stripmap mode SAR focusing methods, both the broadside application and the high squint application was regarded. The two methods are the low-pass filter algorithm and the steptransform, which is based on matched filtering. The used radar data is a simulation of radar data received onboard an aircraft from stationary point targets. In broadside application the both methods focus the data in azimuth direction. The two methods differ in azimuth resolution and the influence of motion error. For the step-transform is the azimuth resolution with no motion errors close to the theoretical value. The step-transform is sensitive to large variations of the yaw angle, which results in a mainlobe broadening and less sidelobe suppression. But with data simulated from a real flight path it handles the motions errors well. The low-pass algorithm has much worse azimuth resolution then the step-transform, but instead it handles motions error better. It is almost unaffected of motion errors which can arise in reality. In high squint application the step-transform does not focus the radar data, due to the fact of large variation of the Doppler frequency slope between target returns spread in azimuth. The low-pass filter algorithm can still focus the radar data in azimuth direction in high squint application. If the PRF is adjusted in that way that the Doppler spectrum of a target return is the same as in the broadside application, the azimuth resolution becomes the same as in the broadside application with the lowpass algorithm. It can also handle the motion errors in high squint mode which can arise in reality without producing a worse result than in the ideal case.

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Bibliography
[1]
An improved step-transform algorithm for high squint angle SAR imaging Xiaobing Sun, Tat Soon Yeo, Chengbo Zhang and Yi Hui Lu 0-7803-4403-0/98, Vol 2. July 1998 IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium Proceedings, P. 37-39. Time-varying Step-transform for high squint SAR imaging Xiaobing Sun, Tat Soon Yeo, Chengbo Zhang, Yihui Lu and Pang Shyan Kooi 0196-2892/99, vol 37, No. 6, November 1999, IEEE. Transactions on geoscience and remote sensing P. 12-21 A new subaperture approach to high squint SAR processing Tat Soon Yeo, Ngee Leng Tan, Cherig Bo Zhang and Yi Hui Lu 0196-2892/01. vol 39, No 5 May 2001, IEEE Transactions on geoscience and remote sensing P. 22-36 Synthetic Aperture Radar, Systems and Signal Processing John C. Curlander and Robert N. McDonough 1991 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 0-471-85770-X Real time Unfocused SAR Algorithm with motion compensation Krzysztof S. Kulpa, Magda Purchla, Mateusz Malanowski Institute of Electronic System, Warsaw University of Technology Application of efficient linear FM matched filtering algorithms to synthetic aperture radar processing. M. Sack and I.G Cumming IEE Proceedings, vol 132, Pt. F, No. 1 February 1985. P. 5-17 Synthetic aperture techniques S. Watts Thorn Emi Electronics Ltd, Hayes, Middlesex, UK Introduction to airborne radar George W. Stimson Scitech Publishing Inc. ISBN 1-891121-01-4 Spotlight Synthetic Aperture Radar Signal Processing Algorithms Walter G. Carerra Ron, S. Goodman Ronald M. Majewski 1995 Artech House, INC, ISBN 0-89006-7238-7
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]

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[10] Statistical digital signal processing and modeling Monson H. Hayes. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 0-471-59431-8 [11] Synthetic aperture radar A. Currie Electronics & communication Engineering Journal August 1991 [12] Matlab Users Guide, Signal Processing Toolbox.

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List of acronyms
APC CRFFT CW FFT FIR FM FRFFT IIR ISAR PCR PR PRF RADAR RCM RCS SAR SLAR SLL SNR SPECAN
Antenna Phase Center Coarse-Resolution Fast Fourier Transform Continuous wave Fast Fourier Transform Finite Impulse Response Frequency Modulation Fine-Resolution Fast Fourier Transform Infinite Impulse Response Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar Pulse Compression Ratio Pulsed Radar Pulse Repetition Frequency RAdio Detection And Ranging Range-Cell Migration Radar Cross Section Synthetic Aperture Radar Side Looking Aperture Radar SideLobe Level Signal to Noise Ratio SPECtral ANalysis

Stripmap SAR Mocomp2005

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Stripmap Mode Synthetic Aperture Radar Imaging with Motion Compensation

Master's Degree Project Stockholm, Sweden 2005

Saab Bofors Dynamics AB

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Antal bilagor No. of appendices

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Mikael Hmlinen 9.1.3 9.2 9.3 9.4 10 10.1 10.2 10.3 11 12 13

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Figure 2-1. An overview of the SAR geometry.

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Figure 2-2. SAR target Doppler return from stationary targets A, B, C.

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The PRF interval is given by:

PRFmin PRF PRFmax

or PRFmin = 2 f Doppler max

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Figure 2-3. An overview of the SAR system

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Figure 2-7. SAR in stripmap mode.

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Figure 2-8. SAR in spotlight mode.

Figure 2-9. SAR in scan mode.

Figure 2-10. SAR in inverse mode.

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Figure 2-12. Shows the amplification of the antenna.

Figure 2-13. A magnified view of the antenna amplification.

= 2 d R = 6v cos ( s ) sin( s ) f r dt 3 Rs2