The microwave photonic (MWP) radar technique is capable of providing ultrawide frequency bandwidth waveforms to generate ultrahigh-resolution (UHR) inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) imagery. Nevertheless, conventional ISAR imaging algorithms have limitations in focusing UHR MWP-ISAR imagery, where high-precision high-order range cell migration (RCM) and phase correction are crucially necessary. In this article, a UHR MWP-ISAR imaging algorithm integrating rotation estimation and high-order motion terms compensation is proposed. By establishing the relationship between parametric ISAR rotation model and high-order motion terms, an average range profile sharpness maximization (ARPSM) is developed to obtain rotation velocity by using nonuniform fast Fourier transform (NUFFT). Second-order range-dependent RCM is corrected with parametric compensation model by using the rotation velocity estimation. Furthermore, the spatial-variant high-order phase error is extracted to compensation by the entire image sharpness maximization (EISM). A new imaging framework is established with two one-dimensional (1-D) parameter estimations: ARPSM and EISM. Extensive experiments demonstrate that the proposed algorithm outperforms traditional ISAR imaging strategies in high-order RCM correction and azimuth focusing performance.

In a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) system, the radar platform may move with a curved trajectory due to the existence of vertical velocity and acceleration, which may result in the failure of the conventional imaging methods. In order to deal with this problem, this paper proposes an improved wavenumber-domain imaging algorithm for high-resolution-high-squint SAR with a curved trajectory. It mainly includes three aspects. First, a modified equivalent range model for a curved trajectory is derived. Second, an improved wavenumber domain imaging algorithm based on the proposed range model is analyzed in detail. Finally, the imaging distortion caused by vertical velocity and acceleration is corrected via geometry and inverse projection. Simulated results and Ku-band real SAR data processing are used to validate the proposed model and imaging algorithm.

The microwave photonic (MWP) radar has the capability of generating ultrawideband (UWB) signals. It is a challenge to realize accurate extraction of attributed scattering centers (ASCs) from MWP signals. This manuscript presents a scattering parameter estimation method in the image domain for UWB MWP signals. The polar-to-rectangular resampling is required for UWB MWP signals. Therefore, a range-azimuth decoupled representation based on the ASC model is formed. The model parameter estimation is converted into an optimization problem, where the statistics of the target signal and the features of interest are modeled to provide prior information. The distribution spread maximization (DSM) and peak magnitude maximization (PMM) principles in the optimization embody this prior information. The particle swarm optimization (PSO) is utilized to search for the parameters of each ASC in the image domain. Moreover, the orthogonal matching pursuit (OMP) algorithm is introduced to avoid repeated computation. Experimental results conducted on the simulated data, XPATCH data, and real data confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method. The proposed method takes into account the specific features of UWB MWP signals, which are neglected in the existing studies. Therefore, the proposed method performs better in extracting ASC parameters from UWB MWP signals in terms of accuracy and more complete sets.

Translational motion compensation plays an important role in the inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) imagery. In this study, a new translational motion compensation algorithm for ISAR imaging under low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) conditions is proposed. This method is formed based on the optimization of dynamic image sharpness metric, by which the translational parameters are accurately estimated from the returned signals. The important properties of the locally and globally optimal points of dynamic image sharpness function are proved and discussed by first using the dominant point-targets model. These properties are employed in the scheme to search for the globally optimal point and prevent the optimization being trapped at a locally optimal point. Based on the properties of optimal points and Gauss–Newton method, the algorithm to estimate the translational parameters by dynamic image sharpness metric optimization (DISMO) is devised. The DISMO can find the accurate translational parameters corresponding to the globally optimal point without being affected by local optima under low SNR conditions with high efficiency. Further, the translational compensation is completed based on the estimates. The proposed method is applied to simulated and real data. The processing results confirm the effectiveness of this new algorithm.

The available focusing algorithms for medium-Earth-orbit (MEO) SAR are all based on the complex nonhyperbolic range equation, which may make it more difficult in imaging processing. In this paper, we model the range equation as the standard hyperbolic form based on the motion compensation (MOCO) principle. However, the conventional two-step MOCO may introduce azimuth spectrum expansion due to the potential large motion error, which can lead to severe azimuth ambiguity. To resolve this problem, we develop an omega-K algorithm based on a modified two-step MOCO and an adaptively straight equivalent (ASE)-velocity model. The algorithm is implemented through three-step processing: 1) the modified two-step MOCO does not compensate for the quadratic motion error (the main factor for the spectrum expansion); 2) an ASE-velocity model is introduced to compensate for the quadratic motion error; and 3) an extended Stolt mapping is proposed to perform the accurate range cell migration correction, and the tandem singular value decomposition-nonlinear chirp scaling algorithm is to correct the azimuth-variant phase error and to perform the azimuth compression. Processing of simulated data and airborne SAR real data validates the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.