Abstract :
The dual-use synthetic aperture radar (SAR) ground moving target indication (GMTI) system should display moving targets on a well focused SAR image in real time. The clutter suppression, necessary for increasing the moving target signal to clutter ratio (SCR) and then the probability of detection, is sensitive to channel balance. Adaptive clutter suppression methods aiming at resolving the channel imbalance cost too much processing time. In this letter, a simple but effective approach is proposed to blindly calibrate the data with unknown channel imbalance and then simplify the clutter suppression. The spectral analysis (SPECAN) algorithm can `look´ a large coverage area with short processing time, however, with a poor azimuth resolution. A method mapping the detected and relocated position of moving targets from SPECAN processed image onto SAR image obtained by full azimuth compression is then discussed. The validity of the proposed fast GMTI method is demonstrated with real data collected by a tri-channel airborne experimental SAR system.
