Time–Frequency–Space Steering Matrix-Based Left/Right Ambiguity Resolving for Dual- Channel Forward-Looking SAR Imaging

With the echo difference between different channels, the left/right ambiguity in single-channel forward-looking synthetic aperture radar (SAR) can be resolved using dual-channel radar. However, due to the restricted channel resources, existing methods have limited performance in resolving left/right ambiguity, especially in the area along the flight path. In this article, a novel left/right ambiguity resolving scheme is proposed to improve the imaging performance of dual-channel forward-looking SAR. In the scheme, the steering matrix considering the time-frequency–space information of echo was designed first, and the linear mapping equation between the echo and the original scene was established. Then, the regularized iterative adaptive approach (RIAA) is introduced to solve the equation, thereby achieving dual-channel forward-looking SAR left/right ambiguity resolving and superresolution imaging simultaneously and directly in the echo domain. At last, the simulated and experimental results were illustrated to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.