SAR focusing of P-band ice sounding data using back-projection

SAR processing can be applied to ice sounder data to improve along-track resolution and clutter suppression. This paper presents a time-domain back-projection technique for SAR focusing of ice sounder data. With this technique, variations in flight track and ice surface slope can be accurately accommodated at the expense of computation time. The back-projection algorithm can be easily parallelized however, and can advantageously be implemented on a graphics processing unit (GPU). Results from using the back-projection algorithm on POLARIS ice sounder data from North Greenland shows that the quality of data is improved by the processing, and the performance of the GPU implementation allows for very fast focusing.