(Microsoft Word - ISAR Imaging of Targets with Complex Motion Based on the Chirp Rate \250CQuadratic Chirp Rate Distribution)

In inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) imaging of targets with complex motion such as fluctuating ships with oceanic waves and high maneuvering airplanes, the azimuth echo signals can be modeled as cubic phase signals (CPSs) after the migration compensation. The chirp rate (CR) and the quadratic chirp rate (QCR) are two important physical quantities of the CPS, which deteriorate the azimuth focusing quality due to the Doppler frequency shift. With these two quantities, other parameters can be estimated by using the fast Fourier transform (FFT). Therefore, the CPS can be uniquely determined by both CR and QCR. In this paper, based on the proposed generalized keystone transform (GKT) and the parametric instantaneous autocorrelation function, a novel distribution of the CPS, known as the CR-QCR distribution (CRQCRD), is presented, and applied in a newly proposed ISAR imaging algorithm for targets with complex motion. The CRQCRD is simple and only requires the FFT and the nonuniform fast Fourier transform (NUFFT). Thanks to the application of the NUFFT, the computational cost is saved and the searching procedure is unnecessary for the nonuniformly spaced signal. Compared to other four representative methods for CPSs, the CRQCRD, which can acquire higher anti-noise performance and no error propagation, is searching-free and more suitable for the situation of multi-targets. Several simulation examples, analyses of the anti-noise performance and ISAR images validate the effectiveness of the CRQCRD and the corresponding ISAR imaging algorithm.