A new method to create a virtual third antenna from a two-channel SAR-GMTI system

Two-channel SAR-GMTI systems are suboptimal for moving target motion parameter estimation. Indeed, the ATI phase estimate of the across-track velocity component for a moving target is biased to lower values depending on the target signal to clutter ratio and the target across-track velocity. Additional antenna diversity can introduce additional degrees of freedom that can eliminate the bias problem. Aperture switching is an accepted method to virtually increase the number of channels without adding new hardware. One such mode is the RADARSAT-2 toggle mode (S. Chiu and C. Gierull, 2006). This paper proposes a new processing method to create a similar effective phase center configuration as the RADARSAT-2 Toggle mode from already recorded two-channel SAR data. This is achieved by delaying and combining the recorded two-channel measurements. The combination operation manifests not only a third phase center halfway between the phase centers of the two-channel system, but also a different antenna length of the virtual third antenna which requires a modification of the DPCA-ATI processing algorithm. The DPCA-ATI performance of the new mode is assessed and compared to ATI from the original two-channel mode.