A hybrid GMTI method for reliable detection results in SAR images

Abstract

Stand-alone synthetic aperture radar (SAR) ground moving target indication (GMTI) methods have both advantages and disadvantages. This paper introduces a hybrid SAR GMTI method that is based on two well-known methods: space time adaptive processing (STAP) and moving target detection by focusing (MTDF). The input of the proposed hybrid method is two time separated complex radar images. The output is detected ground moving targets, the target normalized relative speeds (NRS), and focused images of the detected targets. In the paper, we provide the mathematical background behind the hybrid SAR GMTI method in details. We also provide some experimental results for validating the proposed method. The data for the experiments was acquired in early 2015 by TanDEM-X and TerraSAR-X operating in monostatic pursuit mode. The ground scene where the measurements were conducted is around Mantorp, west of Linköping, Sweden.