FL-PFA: A Polar Format Algorithm for Wide-Beam Forward-Looking SAR Imaging Integrating Spatial-Variant Motion Compensation

Multichannel forward-looking synthetic aperture radar (FLSAR) imaging presents challenges due to spatiotemporal coupling, especially in wide-beam scenarios. This article introduces a new polar format algorithm (PFA) called the forward-looking polar format algorithm (FL-PFA) for wide-beam FLSAR imaging. The proposed algorithm utilizes a time-space–time hybrid scheme to address the spatiotemporal coupling, matching the spatiotemporal structure of FLSAR echoes. Furthermore, the scheme combines spatial-variant motion compensation (MOCO) and polar format imaging, resulting in an efficient processing flow. For spatial-variant MOCO, this article introduces an adaptive subaperture topography- and aperture-dependent (ASATA) algorithm, offering the advantage of balancing compensation accuracy and efficiency using adaptive optimal subapertures. Subsequently, a novel PFA is proposed to obtain a focused FLSAR image. In the PFA, the azimuth angle wavenumber considers both the spatial-variant quadratic phase and residual motion errors, aligning with the spatial-variant Doppler modulation rate characteristic of FLSAR. By resampling the azimuth angle wavenumber, a well-focused FLSAR image on the polar coordinate grid and more accurate MOCO can be achieved simultaneously. Finally, extensive experiments using simulated and actual synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data demonstrate the superiority of FL-PFA.