Simultaneous Synthetic Aperture Radar Imaging and Moving Target Indication

1. Currently, SAR and MTI are performed on separate platforms SAR assumes objects in scene are stationary MTI treats stationary objects as clutter We desire to develop general solution for simultaneous and synergistic SAR/MTI Simultaneous Synthetic Aperture Radar Imaging and Moving Target Indication PI: Dr. Jim Stiles (jstiles@rsl.ku.edu) PhD Student: Geoff Akers, Major, USAF (akersg@ittc.ku.edu) Problem Statement Planned Approach • Develop 3D map of scene—3rd D is radial velocity • Multiple apertures—increases number of observations while the number of unknowns remains the same • Also allows Doppler ambiguities to be resolved • Wide timewidth—increases Doppler resolution • Wide bandwidth—increases Crosstrack resolution • Apply general solution to single aperture radar • “Best possible” solution • Geolocation will likely have ambiguity • The single aperture makes it difficult to unambiguously determine the target’s true velocity “Tracking Via Keystoning,” Dr. David Zasada, 2006, MITRE Corp Important Issues Project Impact • SAR and MTI have different requirements • SAR requires wide bandwidth for spatial resolution • MTI requires wide timewidth to resolve target velocity • MTI needs to scan large areas quickly • Using SAR for MTI • Space Time Adaptive Processing (STAP) for MTI requires an estimate of the data covariance matrix in data domain • The variance is due to clutter • Degraded-resolution SAR images estimate the clutter statistics in the target domain • Wavelets could be used to iteratively increase the image resolution until targets can be identified • Influence future designs of DoD radar architectures • Moving toward the USAF goal of “Provide persistent situation awareness” by enabling timely intelligence of static and dynamic scene • Enable current DoD SAR platforms to simultaneously perform limited MTI