Spaceborne Multichannel SAR Imaging Algorithm for Maritime Moving Targets

Spaceborne multichannel synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is an effective means to realize high-resolution and wide-swath imaging. However, for spaceborne multichannel SAR imaging of maritime moving targets, the target motion will cause undesired channel imbalance, i.e., phase error, and further introduce the spurious targets in the image. To solve this problem, this article proposes a novel spaceborne multichannel SAR imaging algorithm for maritime moving targets, which consists of sequential coarse imaging and accurate imaging. The key strategies are to separate different moving targets by coarse imaging and to estimate the phase error based on the relationship between phase errors and amplitudes of spurious targets. First, the quantitative relationship between phase errors and amplitudes of spurious targets is established. Second, based on coarse imaging results, different maritime targets are effectively separated. Then, based on the measured amplitudes of spurious targets, a cost function, which represents the difference between the real target velocity and estimated target velocity, is constructed and minimized to separately estimate the velocities and phase errors of targets. Moreover, to further improve the accuracy of estimation and to suppress the undesired effects caused by target defocusing, clutter, and noise, an iterative strategy is adopted. Finally, by autofocusing, a well-focused SAR image is obtained. The GF-3 dual-channel real data experiment is conducted. The results indicate that the spurious targets are well suppressed, which validates the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.