Imaging of moving targets using synthetic aperture radar

High resolution SAR imaging has been successfully demonstrated for non-moving ground targets. The SAR community is presently researching the imaging and identification of moving targets because moving target imaging is important for wide area surveillance systems with limited revisit times. An exposed transportable elevated launcher, for example, will stand for less than a half hour but will usually spend much longer times in transit. Presently deployed moving target indicating (MTI) systems can support rapid revisit times but cannot ID targets. Moving target SAR imaging can provide this capability. This paper describes a new algorithm to image targets with large range migration, without supporting MTI information. A unique processing kernel that uses a novel remapping (called keystoning) of the deramped I/Q phase-history provides the ability to image targets with large range migration over the coherent integration time.