Quadratically Constrained Ambiguity Suppression Algorithm for APC/Multichannel SAR Systems With Nonuniform Spatial Sampling

The azimuth phase coding (APC) technique is known for its very low implementation complexity and its effectiveness for point and distributed ambiguities in conventional synthetic aperture radar (SAR) systems. In recent years, as an extension, the APC technique has been briefly discussed for multichannel SAR systems. However, the properties of the APC technique are no longer guaranteed in the multichannel SAR systems based on the digital beamforming (DBF) on-receive, and only a slight APC gain in the suppression of the range ambiguity can be obtained. In this article, we first provide a more thorough analysis for an APC-multichannel SAR system with respect to a uniform pulse-repetition frequency (PRF). Then, the APC/multichannel SAR system with nonuniform spatial sampling is briefly discussed, and an improved reconstruction approach based on a quadratically constrained optimization model is proposed to increase greatly the APC gain with respect to existing multichannel reconstruction algorithms. This proposed approach allows the minimization of the range ambiguity with a given azimuth-ambiguity constraint. In particular, for some specific PRFs, the proposed method permits a cancellation of the odd-order range ambiguity. Finally, simulation experiments are performed to verify the advantages and effectiveness of the proposed approach.