A Novel 3D Imaging Method for Airborne Downward-Looking Sparse Array SAR Based on Special Squint Model

Abstract

Three-dimensional (3D) imaging technology based on antenna array is one of the most important 3D synthetic aperture radar (SAR) high resolution imaging modes. In this paper, a novel 3D imaging method is proposed for airborne down-looking sparse array SAR based on the imaging geometry and the characteristic of echo signal. The key point of the proposed algorithm is the introduction of a special squint model in cross track processing to obtain accurate focusing. In this special squint model, point targets with different cross track positions have different squint angles at the same range resolution cell, which is different from the conventional squint SAR. However, after theory analysis and formulation deduction, the imaging procedure can be processed with the uniform reference function, and the phase compensation factors and algorithm realization procedure are demonstrated in detail. As the method requires only Fourier transform and multiplications and thus avoids interpolations, it is computationally efficient. Simulations with point scatterers are used to validate the method.