Fractional Range Doppler Algorithm for SAR imaging

Synthetic Aperture Radar systems are normally used to form high resolution images from radar backscatter. The Fractional Fourier transform (FrFT), which is a generalized form of the well-known Fourier transform, has opened up the possibility of a new range of potentially promising and useful applications that involve the use and detection of chirp signals including pattern recognition and SAR. In this paper the FrFT is applied to the well established Range Doppler Algorithm in order to obtain a superior result in terms of resolution and noise rejection. The results confirm that the FrFT can be useful to perform high resolution SAR processing and to reduce the speckle noise while enhancing the resolution and focusing accuracy.