Scatterer identification via a subaperture filtering approach

This paper presents a subaperture filtering approach to synthetic aperture radar (SAR) scatterer identification. The scattering models used are based on the general theory of diffraction (GTD). Based on the properties of filtered subaperture sequences, an estimator for scatterer type is derived. A decision statistic, which measures the "likelihood" a specific type scatterer is present at a given location is presented. Using this statistic, estimates for scatterer type, range and amplitude can be obtained using an adaptive decomposition approach. To illustrate the ideas results are presented for synthetic data and comparisons are made with matching pursuits.