SAR Focus Theory of Complicated Range Migration Signatures Due to Moving Targets

Recent studies have revealed that the residual range migration effects of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery smears induced by moving targets can exhibit complicated shapes that are not limited to that of parabolas. This letter demonstrates that automatic focusing methods can remove such range migration effects by estimating and compensating for phase errors directly in the radar video phase history domain. This approach is validated using measured Ku-band SAR clutter data containing buildings and foliage.