Three-Dimensional Target Modeling with Synthetic Aperture Radar John R Hupton Conventional Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) offers high-resolution imaging of a target region in the range and cross-range dimensions along the ground plane. Little or no data is available in the range-altitude dimension, however, and target functions and models are limited to two-dimensional images. This thesis first investigates some existing methods for the computation of target reflectivity data in the deficient elevation domain, and a new method is then proposed for three-dimensional (3-D) SAR target feature extraction.Simulations are implemented to test the decoupled least-squares technique for highresolution spectral estimation of target reflectivity, and the accuracy of the technique is assessed. The technique is shown to be sufficiently accurate at resolving targets in the third axis, but is limited in practicality due to restrictive requirements on the input data.

Three-Dimensional Target Modeling with Synthetic Aperture Radar John R Hupton Conventional Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) offers high-resolution imaging of a target region in the range and cross-range dimensions along the ground plane. Little or no data is available in the range-altitude dimension, however, and target functions and models are limited to two-dimensional images. This thesis first investigates some existing methods for the computation of target reflectivity data in the deficient elevation domain, and a new method is then proposed for three-dimensional (3-D) SAR target feature extraction.Simulations are implemented to test the decoupled least-squares technique for highresolution spectral estimation of target reflectivity, and the accuracy of the technique is assessed. The technique is shown to be sufficiently accurate at resolving targets in the third axis, but is limited in practicality due to restrictive requirements on the input data.