Waveform Design for Synthetic-Aperture Radar Imaging through Dispersive Media

Abstract

In this paper we analyze the problem of optimal waveform design for syntheticapertureradar (SAR) imaging through a dispersive medium. We use a scalar model for wave propagation, together with the single-scattering approximation, and we assume that measurements arepolluted with thermal noise whose statistics are known. For image formation, we use a filtered backprojectionalgorithm in which the filter is determined by knowledge of the power-spectral densities of the scene and noise. In this framework, we derive a waveform which is optimal in the sense of minimizing the mean-square-error of the reconstructed image. We show the results of simulationsfor the example of imaging point scatterers embedded in a certain dispersive background. We showthat for low signal-to-noise ratios, the optimal waveform resembles what is known as a precursor: awave that is generated from propagating ultrawideband waveforms through the medium.