A Novel Method of Three-Dimensional Geometry Reconstruction of Space Targets Based on the ISAR Image Sequence

Based on the inverse synthetic aperture radar image sequence of triaxial stabilized space targets, a novel method of three dimensional (3D) geometry reconstruction for space targets is proposed. We firstly construct the projection vectors connecting the 3D geometry and the 2D ISAR image sequence of a space target by utilizing ISAR imaging model and the radar line of sight (LOS). Then, by projecting the 3D scatterer candidates onto each imaging plane, we can accumulate the energy of the corresponding 2D scatterer in each image. The 3D scatterer candidates occupying larger accumulation energy are reserved as the real parts of the space target. Particle swarm optimization algorithm is applied to search the true 3D scatterers with high efficiency. The innovation of the proposed method lies in that it never needs the 2D scatterer extraction and association, which simplifies the reconstruction algorithm greatly compared with traditional 3D geometry reconstruction methods. Finally, experimental results based on the simulated point target are presented to validate the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed method.