Range Doppler SAR processing using the Fractional Fourier Transform

The Fractional Fourier transform (FrFT), which is a generalized form of the well-known Fourier transform, has opened up the possibility of a new range of potentially promising and useful applications including radar involving the use and detection of chirp signals, pattern recognition and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) image processing. In this paper the Fractional Fourier transform is applied to the Range Doppler Algorithm in order to obtain a better result in terms of resolution. The proposed technique takes advantage from the property of the FrFT to resolve with high precision chirp signals. Preliminary results are encouraging and confirms that the FrFT can be useful to perform high resolution SAR processing.