Superresolution versus motion compensation-based techniques for radar imaging defense applications

Radar imaging of noncooperative targets is an interesting application of all-weather high-resolution coherent radars. However, these images are usually blurred when using the standard range-Doppler algorithm, if a long coherent processing interval (CPI) is used, and motion compensation techniques are hence necessary to improve imaging quality. If the CPI is reduced enough, target scatterers do not migrate of resolution cells and their corresponding Doppler frequencies are constant. Hence, for a short CPI, motion compensation is not longer necessary, but Doppler resolution gets degraded. In that case, superresolution algorithms may be applied. Here, we compare the superresolution-based focusing techniques with motion compensation-based methods. Our conclusion is that imaging quality after employing the superresolution approaches is not improved and, consequently, the use of motion compensation-based approaches to focus the radar images cannot be circumvented. Simulated and real data from high-resolution radars have been used to make the comparisons.