A Moving Target Imaging Method for Maritime Scenarios with Azimuth Multi-Channel SAR Based on Image Quality Optimization

Azimuth multi-channel synthetic aperture radar (SAR) system can achieve high-resolution and wide-swath (HRWS) imaging simultaneously. However, moving targets in maritime scenarios suffer from ghost targets in SAR images due to channel phase errors induced by target velocity. This paper presents a novel moving target imaging method for multi-channel SAR, in which channel phase errors caused by radial velocity are estimated via optimizing image sharpness. Ghost targets are suppressed by compensating channel phase errors in image domain, during which the radial velocity of the target can also be obtained. Experimental results on simulated data verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.