An Integral Detection Scheme for Moving Object Indication in Dual-Channel High Resolution Spaceborne SAR Data

Abstract

Upcoming SAR satellite missions like TerraSAR-X or RADARSAT-2 will deliver high resolution dual channel SAR data with large coverage. These new missions - together with rising interest in area-wide traffic monitoring - motivate spaceborne GMTI as an attractive alternative to conventional traffic data acquisition. However, a moving object appears distorted in the SAR image since the well-known stationary world assumption in the SAR focusing process is violated. In this paper, a detection approach is presented, which considers simultaneously the effects of azimuthal and radial motion of an object. The mathematical framework of this detector combines information of the measured signal, the expected signal, and their variances. Furthermore, the performance of the proposed algorithm is analysed using experimental airborne SAR data.