Precise aperture-dependent motion compensation for high-resolution synthetic aperture radar imaging

Aperture-dependent motion compensation (MOCO) is crucial for high-resolution airborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging, which can suppress image degradation especially for SAR systems working at a high-frequency waveband, such as millimetre-wave (MMW) SAR. The current precise topography and aperture (PTA) dependent MOCO algorithm aims to compensate the azimuth-dependent motion error by using a modified azimuth matched filtering. However, the matched filter is deduced with the principle of stationary phase without considering the effects from the azimuth-dependent motion errors, which limits its precision in focusing MMW SAR data involving severe motion errors. This study proposes a refined PTA algorithm with a precise post matched filter established by the method of series reversion. The range-variant characteristic of residual motion errors is also investigated for an improved precision. Simulated and real MMW SAR data sets are used to validate the effectiveness of the proposal.