A Novel Array Error Estimation Method for Azimuth Multichannel SAR

Minimum side-zone power to center-zone power ratio (MSCR) method is presented to estimate array errors of azimuth multichannel synthetic aperture radar (SAR). Spaceborne azimuth multichannel SAR is one of the most promising candidates for achieving high-resolution wide-swath imaging. However, array errors brought in by instrument influences and aperture position errors need to be compensated. MSCR method is designed to obtain phase error estimates by minimizing side-zone power to center-zone power ratio, where the side-zone and the center-zone indicate the intervals far from and around Doppler centroid respectively. The proposed method achieves significantly improved performance on phase error estimation especially when signal to noise ratio is low. Experiment results confirm the validity and solidity of the method.