True amplitude BiSAR image reconstruction via backprojection and image domain scaling

Abstract

We consider a bistatic synthetic aperture radar (BiSAR) system operating in non-ideal imaging conditions with receive and transmit antennas traversing arbitrary flight trajectories over a non-flat topography; transmitting arbitrary waveforms along flight trajectories etc. In 1 we developed a generalized filtered-backprojection (GFBP) method for BiSAR image formation applicable to such non-ideal imaging scenarios. The method puts edges not only at the right location and orientation, but also at the right strength resulting in true amplitude images. The main computational complexity of the GFBP method comes from the spatially dependent filtering step. In this work, we present an alternative, novel FBP method applicable to non-ideal imaging scenarios resulting in true amplitude images. The method involves ramp filtering in data domain and image domain scaling. Additionally, the method results in fast, computationally efficient implementation than that of GFBP methods.