Recognition of nonlinear dispersive scattering in SAR imagery

This paper presents a new insight into the nonlinear dynamics in SAR imagery. For extended targets, the conventional radar resolution theory is violated due to the nonlinear phase modulation induced by the dispersive scatterers. A novel algorithm motivated by the Hilbert view for the nonlinear phenomenon is introduced. Our algorithm may be used to not only detect the dispersive scatterers but also to estimate the nonlinear order of the phase modulation. Our results are demonstrated on a representative real-world target chip.