Stepped-frequency waveform design for SAR imaging and radial velocity compensation

Abstract

The stepped-frequency waveform is used to obtain large effective bandwidth for high range resolution by transmitting the pulses with sequentially changing carrier frequency, so that is reduces the requirements on instantaneous bandwidth and receiver. However, this waveform is very sensitive to the radial velocity between radar and targets, which results in the loss of range resolution and SNR. This paper combines the stepped-frequency waveform with synthetic aperture radar (SAR) in order to achieve the high resolution image in two dimensions. Furthermore, the consideration of waveform design is discussed, and the simulation results, which validate the method, are shown.