SAR focusing performance for moving objects with random motion components

Synthetic aperture radar imaging is generally based on the assumption that objects in the scene are stationary. Many approaches have been proposed that compensate for a moving target when one wishes to track or image it. In this paper we consider moving objects that have random fluctuations in their motion, for example caused by engine vibration or road jitter. We study the Cramer-Rao bounds for estimating the location and velocity of a scattering center on such a target, and show that with even small random fluctuations, achievable focusing performance can be several times worse than for a stationary object.