AROMA SAR Refocus of Moving Targets having Complicated Pitching Maneuvers

Moving targets are often smeared in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery in the radar cross-range direction to an extent that humans are unable to recognize them. A recent investigation has yielded an Arbitrary Rigid Object Motion Autofocus (AROMA) methodology that gives automatic refocus of moving targets that have arbitrary variation in the target rotation and translation profiles during the coherent SAR collection time. Fundamentally, AROMA extends the Phase Gradient Autofocus (PGA) methods that can give excellent focus of the earth’s surface to instead apply to the refocus of moving targets. The current study examines AROMA performance with regards to complicated pitching motions of the target during the SAR collection time. Specifically, this investigation considers the quality of the AROMA refocused imagery for targets that exhibit complicated pitching variation when injected into a background of measured SAR image data. This analysis reveals that AROMA gives well focused target images that are accurate reproductions of the true underlying target structure.