A Two-Step Processing Method for Diving-Mode Squint SAR Imaging With Subaperture Data

Due to the existence of vertical velocity in diving-squint synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging, the azimuth-shift invariance along the horizontal direction is not satisfied. This will lead to a big approximation error and influence the imaging results when the existing imaging processing methods are directly applied. In order to solve these problems, an equivalent model is first introduced to describe the motion characteristic in the diving-squint mode. By adopting this approach, the diving-squint SAR imaging can be treated as the conventional one, i.e., the height remains unchanged, with the azimuth-shift invariance satisfied along the flight direction. Based on the equivalent model, a two-step processing method for the diving-squint SAR imaging with subaperture data is proposed in this article. First, a time-scaling approach is adopted to obtain the well-focused 2-D image in the slant plane. Since the equivalent model will cause the rotation of the imaging projection plane and introduce the severe distortion in the ground imagery, a rapid geometric correction method based on inverse projection is further performed to get the ground imagery with little distortion through 2-D sinc interpolation. Simulation and real-data results validate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.