Ambigutiy function of SAR based on OFDM waveform

Recently many researchers have turned their interests to Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) signal since its promising features in radar. This paper concerns a novel Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) system which employs this OFDM signal. Though the OFDM will bring lots of advantages, the performance may be changed since the signal of SAR is different from conventional ones. To evaluate the change, this paper will give a theoretical analysis and the corresponding simulation results from the viewpoint of ambiguity function. This ambiguity function is equivalent to the role of Point Spread Function (PSF) which is often used in SAR for evaluating resolutions. Comparing to the conventional SAR with LFM signal, it is proved that the resolution of SAR based on OFDM is equivalent to the conventional one or even better. This ambiguity function also provides a principle for selecting various OFDM signals as the transmit signal of SAR.