Novel sparse apertures ISAR imaging algorithm via the TLS-ESPRIT technique
The prevalent imaging method in inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) system is range-Doppler (RD) method, which is implemented by the fast Fourier transformation (FFT). FFT is computationally efficient, but it comes with a price – the problems of wide main-lobes and high side-lobes, especially under the sparse apertures condition. In addition, the resolution of RD method is determined by the radar parameters, which poses limitation to super-resolution imaging, multi-tasking and cognitive reconfigurable applications. In this study, the authors propose a novel super-resolution ISAR imaging method based on the total least squares-estimation of signal parameters via rotational invariance technique (TLS-ESPRIT). The locations and intensities of the scatterers are obtained by employing the ESPRIT algorithm and the least squares technique. Then the ISAR image is formulated, having circumvented all of the above-mentioned limitations. Experiments based on simulated and real measured data validate the effectiveness of the proposed method.