Observer adaptive PRF for synthetic aperture radar imaging

A synthetic array radar (SAR) image is formed by processing a data base collected by an aircraft flying an array length while periodically interrogating the image field with a sequence of transmitted pulses. The length of the array, hence the resolution of the map is limited by quadratic phase terms which are accumulated along the array path. We will show in this paper, that this quadratic term is due in part to the uniform temporal sampling and can be significantly reduced by an observer adaptive sampling technique. This technique is particularly useful for minimizing the effects of aircraft maneauvers on the image depth of field.