A Nonlinear Chirp Scaling Algorithm for Processing Multi-Receiver SAS Data with Small Squint Angle

Squint multi-receiver synthetic aperture sonar (SAS) data is more challenging to process than data about its common side-looking counterpart because the geometry is complicated. While traditional multi-receiver algorithms mainly handle general side-looking cases, they do not work well for squint cases. Up to now, no multi-receiver algorithm for handling squint multi- receiver SAS data has been reported. This paper focuses on an imaging algorithm for the squint multi-receiver SAS. Firstly, the “non-stop-go-stop” signal model is established for squint multi- receiver SAS. Then a squint multi-receiver nonlinear chirp scaling algorithm (SMANLCSA) is proposed that is suited to process multi-receiver SAS data with small squint angle and SMANLCSA involves three key steps. The first step is to turn squint multi-receiver data into squint single-receiver data. The second step is a Doppler centroid frequency shift. The third step is range cell migration correction using nonlinear chirp scaling. Simulations have shown that SMANLCSA can handle squint multi-receiver data more accurately and effectively than the previous algorithm..