Microwave Photonic Radar Structured Imaging Based on Scattering Inversion and Structure Reconstruction

Benefiting from the assistance of photonic devices, the Microwave Photonics Radar (MWP-Radar) achieves imaging resolutions at the centimeter level. Consequently, high-resolution images obtained by the system can be utilized for the accurate identification of significant ground, sea, and airborne targets. Traditional imaging algorithms, based on point target echo models, encounter mismatch issues when processing high-resolution imaging of extended targets, leading to the manifestation of isolated strong points in the imaging results. This phenomenon neglects the edge structural features of the targets, hindering applications such as target recognition. To address this challenge, a Microwave Photonics Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar (MWP-ISAR) structured imaging algorithm based on scatter inversion is proposed.In this work, the MWP-Radar imaging echo model is first established, dividing the scatter center echo into extended scatter center echo and non-extended scatter center echo. Subsequently, a target scatter center inversion algorithm is proposed for the accurate estimation of the scatter center attributes in MWP echoes. Reconstruction of the extended scatter center based on its scattering parameters follows, while interpolation is applied to the non-extended center to restore its edge characteristics. Ultimately, structured imaging results of the target are obtained. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is validated based on measured MWP-Radar echo data from a Boeing 737 aircraft.