A Multiscale Approach to Synthetic Aperture Radar in Dispersive Random Media

We consider Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) image formation in the situation when the propagation medium is random and dispersive. The propagation model is the Klein-Gordon equation with a random index of refraction and a random dispersive term. We show via a multiscale analysis how the medium heterogeneities and the dispersion affect the image. In fact, in the situation with a strong source chirp signal the main effect of the medium heterogeneities is to introduce random phase distortions in the SAR data. We carry out novel scaling analysis that gives a precise characterization of this canonical phase perturbation and how it affects image resolution and stability. The main effect of the phase perturbation is to reduce the azimuthal resolution and the signal-to-noise ratio and we quantify this performance degradation. PACS numbers: 78A46, 78A48, 78M35 A Multiscale Approach to Synthetic Aperture Radar in Random Media 2