SAR imaging of moving targets by subaperture based low-rank and sparse decomposition

We propose a subaperture based method for synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging of moving targets. It exploits low-rank and sparse decomposition for extraction of moving targets from the complex SAR scene. First SAR raw data are divided into subapertures in the azimuth direction. Subsequently, low-rank and sparse decomposition is applied using the multiple subapertures data to accomplish the separation of moving targets from the stationary SAR background. A full resolution moving target image is reconstructed by combining the spectral information of the sparse subaperture images. Such an image has a high signal to clutter ratio and is well suited for motion estimation and focusing algorithms. This proposed framework extends the applicability of sparsity-driven moving target focusing methods to very low signal to clutter ratio environments. We demonstrate the performance of our approach through experiments with synthetic and real SAR data

Real-time tracking of moving objects from scattering matrix in real-world microwave imaging

The problem of the real-time microwave imaging of small, moving objects from a scattering matrix without diagonal elements, whose elements are measured scattering parameters, is considered herein. An imaging algorithm based on a Kirchhoff migration operated at single frequency is designed, and its mathematical structure is investigated by establishing a relationship with an infinite series of Bessel functions of integer order and antenna configuration. This is based on the application of the Born approximation to the scattering parameters of small objects. The structure explains the reason for the detection of moving objects via a designed imaging function and supplies some of its properties. To demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of the proposed algorithm, various simulations with real-data are conducted

SAR moving object imaging using sparsity imposing priors

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) returns from a scene with motion can be viewed as data from a stationary scene, but with phase errors due to motion. Based on this perspective, we formulate the problem of SAR imaging of motion-containing scenes as one of joint imaging and phase error compensation. The proposed method is based on the minimization of a cost function which involves sparsity-imposing regularization terms on the reflectivity field to be imaged, considering that it admits a sparse representation as well as on the spatial structure of the motion-related phase errors, reflecting the assumption that only a small percentage of the entire scene contains moving objects. To incorporate the spatial structure of the phase errors into the problem, we provide three different sparsity-enforcing prior terms. In order to achieve computational gains, we also present a two-step version of our approach, which first determines regions of interest that are likely to contain the moving objects and then applies our sparsity-driven approach for joint image reconstruction and autofocusing in such a spatially constrained setting. Our preliminary experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of this new moving target SAR imaging approach

Ocean Remote Sensing with Synthetic Aperture Radar

The ocean covers approximately 71% of the Earth’s surface, 90% of the biosphere and contains 97% of Earth’s water. The Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) can image the ocean surface in all weather conditions and day or night. SAR remote sensing on ocean and coastal monitoring has become a research hotspot in geoscience and remote sensing. This book—Progress in SAR Oceanography—provides an update of the current state of the science on ocean remote sensing with SAR. Overall, the book presents a variety of marine applications, such as, oceanic surface and internal waves, wind, bathymetry, oil spill, coastline and intertidal zone classification, ship and other man-made objects’ detection, as well as remotely sensed data assimilation. The book is aimed at a wide audience, ranging from graduate students, university teachers and working scientists to policy makers and managers. Efforts have been made to highlight general principles as well as the state-of-the-art technologies in the field of SAR Oceanography