Modified Imaging Method For High Resolution Wide

Swath Spaceborne SAR Based On Nonuniform

Azimuth Sampling
Zhirong Men1, Pengbo Wang1, Chunsheng Li1
School of Electronics and Information Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing, China, menzhirong@buaa.edu.cn

AbstractWith the increasing demands for higher
resolution and wider swath in many applications of
Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), sliding spotlight mode
has been presented. Here the antenna pattern is steered
towards a fixed point to increase the synthetic aperture
length and consequently in a better resolution. Currently,
the image processing algorithms for sliding spotlight mode
are almost based on the equivalent slant range model
(ESRM). A great challenge has to be faced in signal
processing of sliding spotlight mode. The ESRM, which is
used for signal processing, may cause a Doppler parameter
mismatch phenomenon and making an image quality
decline at the edge of the scene when the swath coverage
gets larger. In this paper, a modified imaging method
based on nonuniform azimuth sampling is presented. First,
a nonuniform azimuth sampling method is developed to
compensate the Doppler parameter mismatch
phenomenon. Second, a modified imaging method is
proposed. Simulations are performed to validate the
presented algorithm.
Index TermsHigh-resolution wide-swath synthetic aperture
radar (SAR), nonuniform azimuth sampling, modified imaging
method.
I. INTRODUCTION
Synthetic Aperture Radar, which is independently of
weather and sunlight illumination, is a well-established and
powerful imaging technique for remote sensing [1]. Since the
first civilian spaceborne SAR, Seasat, was launched in 1978,
significant progress has been made in this area. With the
launch of the SAR satellites TerraSAR-X, TanDEM-X, ALOS-
2, Radarsat-2, as well as Sentinel-1a, the spatial resolution of
spaceborne SAR has been upgraded from tens of meters to the
meter regime [2]. By means of the development of beam
steering, TerraSAR-X2, will allow a spatial resolution of up to
0.25 meter [3]. To comply with increased requirements on
higher resolution in many applications, sliding Spotlight mode
and staring Spotlight mode have been proposed and carried out
in TerraSAR-X. As is shown in Fig.1, different from Stripmap
operation, whose antenna beam is always orthogonal to the
flight direction, the sliding Spotlight mode applies an azimuth
antenna steering to a rotation center outside the imaged scene,
and the staring Spotlight mode applies an azimuth antenna
steering to a rotation center inside the imaged scene during the
complete illumination [4].
Fig. 1. Illumination principle of Stripmap, Sliding Spotlight and Staring
Spotlight Mode
With the antenna pattern staring to a fixed point, the
synthetic aperture length is increased on curved orbits and
consequently in a better resolution.
Currently, In high-resolution spaceborne SAR systems, the
image processing algorithms for sliding spotlight mode and
staring Spotlight mode are almost based on the equivalent slant
range model(ESRM) [5]. But the ESRM may cause a Doppler
parameter mismatch phenomenon and making an image quality
decline at the edge of the scene when the swath coverage gets
larger. A way to overcome this problem is based on
partitioning the received raw data into blocks in azimuth [6].
Yet, the processing of each segmentation data causes a low
efficiency of this imaging method. In this paper, an extended
imaging method based on nonuniform azimuth sampling is
presented for high-resolution wide-swath (HRWS). Here the
high-resolution means a spatial resolution of decimeter level.
By nonuniform azimuth sampling, the Doppler parameter
mismatch phenomenon is compensated and high resolution
wide swath imaging is realized efficiently.
This paper is organized as follows: With a analysis of
Doppler parameter error, the compensation method based on
nonuniform azimuth sampling is presented in Section II. The
relevant imaging algorithm for high-resolution wide-swath
spaceborne SAR is developed in Section III. Simulation results
are provided in Section IV, and conclusions are drawn in
Section V.

978-1-4673-7297-8/15/$31.00 2015
c IEEE 447
 II. DOPPLER PARAMETER ERROR AND COMPENSATION azimuth sampling, which is denoted as f r' . By special A and
For traditional spaceborne SAR systems, the integration
time is less than 2 seconds, and the SAR motion can be well
B, we can get an exact f r' to compensate the azimuth
represented by the ESRM, which is shown in Equation 1. Most frequency modulation rate error f r .
of the classic SAR imaging algorithms are all based on the
ESRM. However, for high resolution and wide swath SAR
systems, the much longer integration time will introduce
Doppler parameter errors in signal processing based on the
ESRM.
R(t ) = R02 + V 2t 2 2 R0Vt cos (1)
The geometry of actual track and the ESRM is shown in
Fig. 2. In the data acquisition, the radar platform moves from
M to N along the actual track, and O is the central point of
the illumination process. The Doppler frequency and azimuth
frequency modulation rate of M , N and O are denoted
as f dM , f rM , f dO , f rO , f dN and f rN . However, in the ESRM,
assuming that the Doppler frequency equals f dM at M ' , there Fig. 3. Azimuth frequency modulation rate error caused by the ESRM
will be an azimuth frequency modulation rate error between
M and M ' , which can be written as f rM = f rM
'
f rM . By
III. IMAGING METHOD BASED ON
computer simulation, we can get the f r - t line, which is NONUNIFORM AZIMUTH SAMPLING
shown in Fig. 3. Along with the swath coverage getting larger,
Based on nonuniform azimuth sampling, a modified
the azimuth frequency modulation rate error increases, and
imaging method is proposed here, as shown in Fig. 4.
eventually causes an image quality decline at the edge of the
Compared with imaging algorithm for uniform sampling, the
scene. For traditional spaceborne SAS systems, the pulse repeat
main difference modified here focuses on the compensation of
frequency (PRF) is constant, and this can be understood as
3th phase term [5]. In the 2-D frequency domain, in order to
uniform azimuth sampling in the data acquisition. In order to
remove the RCM, parameters of the reference function need to
compensation the azimuth frequency modulation rate error, the
be adjusted according to the nonuniform azimuth sampling
sampling time t can be replaced by At 2 + Bt in Equation 1, parameters A and B .
and the new range Equation can be expressed as

( ) (
R(t ) = R02 + V 2 At 2 + Bt 2 R0V At 2 + Bt cos
2
) (2)
'
fdM f rM '
M' N ' fdN f rN
fd 0 fr 0
M fdM f rM N f f
dN rN

R0

Fig. 2. Geometry of actual track and the ESRM

Now, in signal processing based on the ESRM, the echo

data which is received at the sampling time At 2 + Bt can be
regarded as an echo data received at the sampling time t . As a
Fig. 4. Block diagram of modified imaging method
result, this may also cause an azimuth frequency modulation
rate error between uniform azimuth sampling and nonuniform

448 2015 IEEE 5th Asia-Pacific Conference on Synthetic Aperture Radar(APSAR)

 IV. SIMULATION RESULTS TABLE II. SIMULATION PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF POINT
TARGETS
The simulation parameters, which is similar to TerraSAR-X,
Point Distance Azimuth Resolution
are listed in Table . And the ground scene used for Target from scene Resolution PSLR ISLR
simulation is shown in Fig. 5. center (km) (m) (dB) (dB)
 uniform 1 0.0 0.2501 -13.26 -11.78
azimuth 2 1.0 0.2515 -12.64 -11.15
sampling 3 2.0 0.2545 -11.18 -9.70
4 3.0 0.2602 -10.10 -8.83
nonuniform 1 0.0 0.2500 -13.26 -11.82
azimuth 2 1.0 0.2503 -13.92 -11.81
sampling 3 2.0 0.2504 -13.27 -11.81
4 3.0 0.2508 -13.20 -11.83

V. CONCLUSION
In this paper, a novel high resolution wide swath imaging
Fig. 5. Ground scene used for simulation method based on nonuniform azimuth sampling is presented.
By nonuniform azimuth sampling, the azimuth frequency
modulation rate error, caused by the use of ESRM, is
TABLE I. SIMULATION PARAMETERS compensated. Considering the parameters of the nonuniform
Parameter Value Units azimuth sampling principle, an modified imaging method,
Semi-major 514 km based on chirp scaling algorithm is proposed. By computer
simulation, the imaging method, based on nonuniform azimuth
Eccentricity 0.0011 - sampling is proved valid and remarkable.
Inclination 98 deg
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Argument of perigee 90 deg
This work is supported by the Fundamental Research Funds
Carrier frequency 9.6 GHz for Central Universities under Grant No.YWF-15-GJSYS-054.
Bandwidth 1.2 GHz
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Sampling frequency 1.4 GHz
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2015 IEEE 5th Asia-Pacific Conference on Synthetic Aperture Radar(APSAR) 449