Experimental moving target detection results from a three-beam airborne SAR

We consider the problem of detecting and locating moving targets in sideways looking airborne radar. Experimental data is presented and compared to mathematical descriptions of expected system performance, Good agrement between theory and experiment is achieved. In terms of moving target detection we find that DPCA solutions may be significantly suboptimal due to inevitable channel mismatches. STAP solutions are found to offer a significant improvement in performance, In terms of target location a theoretical description of expected monopulse performance is derived and compared with the experimental results, Good agreement is found showing that targets may be located very accurately with monopulse provided that we have good target signal to noise ratios.