Synthetic-Aperture Radar Based on Nonsinusoidal Functions: II-Pulse Compression, Contrast, Resolution, and Doppler Shift

The first of this series of papers derived geometric relations for a synthetic-aperture radar that used either a moving antenna or stationary antenna arrays in one or two dimensions. This second paper deals with additional concepts that are required to make the geometric relations practically useful. The sections on pulse compression and c and contrast carry these well-known concepts from sinusoidal to certain nonsinusoidal functions. The section on resolution shows that the resolution can be increased either by increasing the signal band-width Δf or the signal power P, and that this exchange is possible according to the very favorable relation Δfpl/2 = constant. Very little mathematics is used to derive this result which is contrary to experience although fully in line with basic theory; a simple derivation helps one avoid hidden assumptions and other sources of mistakes. The section on Doppler shift shows that this effect can be used to separate moving targets -from stationary ones; such a discrimination is not possible with the conventional synthetic-aperture radar since it uses the Doppler shift to produce the synthetic aperture.