A Novel Spaceborne MIMO-SAR Imaging Scheme Based on Improved OFDM Waveforms

In recent years, the multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) concept has been widely researched because it can provide more degrees of freedom to dramatically improve SAR system performance. However, the echo separation issue of different transmit antennas is the most challenging issue and it stirs up extensive discussions. In this letter, a novel MIMO-SAR imaging scheme based on the improved orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) waveforms is proposed. The main contributions of this work are that: 1) Improved generation method for M OFDM waveforms is presented. This method can compensate the extra carrier frequency deviation and compared with the other compensation methods, this method is more general and suitable for M OFDM waveforms. 2) Based on the proposed OFDM waveforms, a novel and low-cost spaceborne MIMO-SAR imaging scheme is proposed. In this scheme, a simple time-shift weighting process and a bandpass filter bank are employed to separate the echoes from the close arrival angles. Then, the digital beamforming (DBF) on receive in elevation is employed to separate the echoes from far arrival angles. Furthermore, the distributed scene simulation results are presented to verify the practicability of the proposed scheme.

Automated summary

In this letter, a novel MIMO-SAR imaging scheme based on the improved orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) waveforms is proposed to address the challenging echo separation issue of different transmit antennas. The scheme employs a simple time-shift weighting process and a bandpass filter bank to separate the echoes from close arrival angles, and digital beamforming (DBF) on receive is employed to separate the echoes from far arrival angles. Distributed scene simulation results are presented to verify the practicability of the proposed scheme.