Motion parameter estimation of multiple ground fast-moving targets with a three-channel synthetic aperture radar

This study presents a novel motion parameters estimation technique for moving targets, including those with velocities beyond the Nyquist limit in multi-channel synthetic aperture radar data. The technique proposed in this study exploits the linear dependence between the fold factor of the cross-track velocity and the slope of the moving target trajectory in the range-compressed and azimuth time domain after performing Keystone transformation in the range frequency and azimuth time domain. The velocity ambiguity thus can be overcome. The along-track velocity can be retrieved from the chirp rate estimated by applying a new time-frequency analysis method called Keystone-Wigner transform. The algorithm of motion parameter estimation efficiently converts the two-dimensional (2-D) search into the two separate 1-D cases. The proposed method can robustly estimate the motion parameters of the fast-moving targets, which are illustrated both with simulated and real data.