Real-Time Imaging Flow for High-Resolution Ice-Sounding Radar

In order to determine a great capacity of ice thickness assessments in a short time on-site, we have designed a real-time processor by using the modern commercial DSP chip named TMS320C6678. It is essential to develop an appropriate real-time imaging algorithm adapted to this real-time processor. In this paper, we propose a novel real-time imaging algorithm named the range-Doppler algorithm (RDA) integrated with the shift-and-correlate (SAC) algorithm. The proposed method extends the standard RDA to be appropriate for numerous media while adding the SAC algorithm to realize azimuth FM rate estimation to obtain accurate echograms of interior reflecting horizons (IRHs) and bedrock of the ice sheets at different depths. Initially, theoretical study is performed to the introduced method. Next, the hardware architecture of the designed real-time embedded system is presented, as well as the implementation of the proposed method on this processor. As a final point, the method is applied to the replication point targets and high-resolution ice-sounding radar information in order to verify its correctness of ice layers picturing. Through the presented echograms of ice sheets and the comparisons with both preceding methods in both main features, we can establish that the designed real-time processor accompany with the proposed RDA integrated with the SAC algorithm is quite reliable to generate the high-resolution ice-sounding images deprived of lowering the capability to reduce the azimuth clutter.