3-D Imaging Using Synthetic Aperture Radar With a Frequency Diverse Array

In this letter, a 3-D synthetic aperture radar with a frequency diverse array (3-D-FDA-SAR) is proposed for 3-D imaging. By applying an FDA to the 3-D-SAR system, the proposed 3-D-FDA-SAR can achieve real 3-D imaging using a simple hardware structure and a simple imaging algorithm. Specifically, the bandwidth needed for the range resolution is dispersed in space by the FDA, and the spatial resources (large aperture) needed for the along-track resolution are replaced by time resources. Therefore, the transmission and processing of wideband signals can be avoided, so the imaging algorithm only comprises a phase compensation step based on the back projection (BP) imaging algorithm. A resolution analysis of the range, along-track and across-track is presented to illustrate the rationality of the bandwidth dispersion and resource replacement. The simulation and experimental results verify the effectiveness of the proposed strategy.