SAR-ISAR Blending Using Compressed Sensing Methods

Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar (ISAR) target images are extracted using compressed sensing methods. The extracted images are edited and merged into measured Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images. A noise free image of the target is extracted from the Radar Cross Section (RCS) measurement by using the Basis Pursuit Denoise (BPDN) method and then solving for a model consisting of point scatterers. The target signature point scatterers are then merged into a point scatterer representation of the SAR background scene. This method means that SAR images acquired in expensive airborne field trials can be used efficiently to evaluate different targets and camouflage measured separately in a ground based setup. The method is demonstrated with turntable measurements of a full scale target, with and without camouflage, signature extraction and blending into a SAR background. We find that the method provides an efficient way of evaluating measured target signatures in SAR backgrounds.