Compressive Sensing (CS) technology has been widely applied in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging. However, the typical sparse reconstruction model, L 0 regularization, can overlook sparse features in target cluster structures, leading to reconstructed SAR images with isolated scatterers and making it impossible to discern the underlying target structure. Furthermore, the iterative hard thresholding (IHT) method shows great potential in sparse imaging. However, it requires transforming the echo data and imaging grid matrixs into vectors and constructing a large observation matrix. This leads to a significant computational overhead in large-scale scenes. In this letter, we propose a convolutional reweighting L0 norm regularization method, rooted in structural sparsity within CS theory. This method aims to enhance the sparse features of cluster structures in radar images. To expedite computation, we introduce the Armijo gradient descent line-search step size criterion to adapt the step size in the iteration process and the imaging support set. Ultimately, two sets of experimental data demonstrate the algorithm's accuracy and evaluate its viability.
Inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) imaging can be improved by processing Range-Instantaneous Doppler (RID) images, according to a method proposed in this paper that uses neural networks. ISAR is a significant imaging technique for moving targets. However, scatterers span across several range bins and Doppler bins while imaging a moving target over a large accumulated angle. Defocusing consequently occurs in the results produced by the conventional Range Doppler Algorithm (RDA). Defocusing can be solved with the time-frequency analysis (TFA) method, but the resolution performance is reduced. The proposed method provides the neural network with more details by using a string of RID frames of images as input. As a consequence, it produces better resolution and avoids defocusing. Furthermore, we have developed a positional encoding method that precisely represents pixel positions while taking into account the features of ISAR images. To address the issue of an imbalance in the ratio of pixel count between target and non-target areas in ISAR images, we additionally use the idea of Focal Loss to improve the Mean Squared Error (MSE). We conduct experiments with simulated data of point targets and full-wave simulated data produced by FEKO to assess the efficacy of the proposed approach. The experimental results demonstrate that our approach can improve resolution while preventing defocusing in ISAR images.
In long-aperture forward-looking radar, nonlinear Doppler mismatch caused by target relative motion can lead to positioning deviation and image defocusing. To address this issue, an adaptive segmented Doppler compensation method based on phase error constraints is proposed. As synthetic aperture time increases, high-order terms in the slant range history broaden the Doppler spectrum and enhance spatially variant phase errors. Conventional global compensation cannot achieve stable focusing, and fixed-length segmentation fails to adapt to varying motion nonlinearity. Accordingly, the high-order nonlinear characteristics of the slant range are first analyzed, and an adaptive sub-aperture partitioning criterion constrained by second-order phase error is derived, ensuring each sub-aperture satisfies the local quasi-linear hypothesis. A cross-segment mapping relationship between different sub-apertures is then established, and the compensation process is formulated as a two-dimensional separable operator. To manage the high computational complexity of solving spatially variant mapping under long apertures, the Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (ADMM) is introduced to iteratively optimize the operator, achieving phase alignment and coherent reconstruction among sub-apertures. Simulation and experimental results show that the proposed method effectively suppresses nonlinear defocusing under long-aperture conditions. Compared with conventional global methods, it achieves superior energy concentration and focusing resolution in extended target scenarios.