Acceleration of synthetic aperture radar imaging via subaperture chirp-scaling approach based on heterogeneous graphics-processing-unit-central-processing-unit architecture

For large-scale synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data, it is difficult to achieve SAR imagery in a timely manner using traditional imaging algorithms. Subaperture architecture is introduced to a chirp-scaling algorithm to process large-scale SAR data. By means of the subaperture partition, the real data can be processed in parallel based on heterogeneous graphics processing unit-central processing unit architecture. The principle of subaperture partition is not only discussed, but also the closed form of the overlap rate for a subaperture combination under the mode is first theoretically presented, which provides a foundation for airborne real-time data processing. Finally, simulation and real data experiments validate the proposed approach. (C) 2015 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)