Tomographic Focusing by Combining Time-Domain Back-Projection and Multi-Looking Based Focusing Techniques

Various tomographic processing methods have been investigated in recent years. The quality of the focused tomographic image is usually limited by several factors. In particular, Fourier-based focusing methods are susceptible to irregular and sparse sampling, two problems that are unavoidable in case of multi-pass, multi-baseline SAR data acquired by an airborne system. Neither time-domain back-projection (TDBP) processing, although providing a very accurate processing framework, is able to overcome the problem of ambiguous target detection in the tomographic image. In this paper, a possible extension of the TDBP approach to multi-looking based tomographic focusing methods like standard beamforming and Capon beamforming is discussed.