Circular synthetic aperture radar sub-aperture angle information complementation based on azimuth-controllable generative adversarial network

Abstract

A conditional generative adversarial network (CGAN) framework is proposed to address the issue of incomplete circular synthetic aperture radar (CSAR) azimuthal information due to motion errors. Specifically, the authors propose a novel CGAN architecture that can control the azimuth angle for arbitrary angle generation, capable of complementing missing CSAR sub-aperture information. The network incorporates angular labels for various scenarios and integrates a dynamic region-aware convolution (DRconv) module. Additionally, to counteract the common challenge of mode collapse in GAN training, a mode seeking regularisation technique is innovativrly introduced into the authors’ loss function. The efficacy of the proposed network is rigorously tested using both the MSTAR dataset and an X-band SAR dataset. The results demonstrate that the authors’ network can generate high-fidelity SAR images with controllable azimuths, closely resembling authentic images. Furthermore, the proposed method excels in complementing missing CSAR sub-aperture information, effectively supplying the lost angular information due to motion errors. A new technical approach for SAR image generation is not only offered but it also has the potential to significantly expand SAR datasets. This advancement is expected to enhance the quality and utility of SAR imagery in applications such as surveillance, reconnaissance, and environmental monitoring.