A comparison of ω-k and generalized SAR inversion for runway imaging

Wavefront curvature must be taken into account in highly squinted SAR applications, such as runway imaging from an aircraft approaching for landing. The ω-k algorithm, which successfully incorporates wavefront curvature into the processing, shows certain aberrations in the highly squinted case, depending on the accuracy of the interpolation and the location of the targets in the scene. An alternative SAR inversion method performs a more general basis decomposition of the imaging kernel in order to accurately model the wavefront curvature. This general inversion method is inherently robust to noise, however, it is computationally much more expensive. The performance of the ω-k algorithm can be improved by increasing the computational load only linearly. Here we make a fair comparison of the two methods, where they are constrained to use the same amount of computation