Phase Correction for Accurate DOA Angle and Position Estimation of Ground-Moving Targets Using Multi-Channel Airborne Radar

Accurate position estimation of ground-moving targets is a crucial requirement for any radar-based surveillance system. For a multi-channel airborne radar, the target position on the ground can be accurately obtained by estimating the direction-of-arrival (DOA) angle of the moving targets. However,...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE geoscience and remote sensing letters 2022, Vol.19, p.1-5
Main Authors: Barros Cardoso da Silva, Andre, Joshi, Sushil Kumar, Baumgartner, Stefan Valentin, de Almeida, Felipe Queiroz, Krieger, Gerhard
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Airborne radar
Airborne remote sensing
Algorithms
Antenna arrays
Atmospheric turbulence
Azimuth
Beamforming
calibration
Channels
Data acquisition
Direction of arrival
Direction-of-arrival estimation
Elevation
Estimation
Geometry
ground-moving target indication (GMTI)
maritime safety
Moving targets
Radar
radar applications
Radar data
radar signal processing
Radar tracking
SAR (radar)
Signal processing algorithms
Surveillance radar
synthetic aperture radar (SAR)
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Accurate position estimation of ground-moving targets is a crucial requirement for any radar-based surveillance system. For a multi-channel airborne radar, the target position on the ground can be accurately obtained by estimating the direction-of-arrival (DOA) angle of the moving targets. However, in practice, the aircraft motion caused by atmospheric turbulence tilts the antenna array and introduces undesired phase differences among the multiple receive channels. As a result, the accuracy of the estimated DOA angles can be severely affected. This letter presents a robust and efficient algorithm that corrects the undesired phase differences among the multiple receive channels. By doing this, accurate DOA angles and, therefore, accurate target positions on the ground can be estimated. Important inputs of the proposed algorithm are the precise absolute positions of the receive channels and the elevation of the terrain. The performance of the proposed algorithm is validated using simulated data as well as radar data acquired with the DLR's multi-channel airborne system with digital beamforming capabilities digital beamforming SAR (DBFSAR).
ISSN:1545-598X
1558-0571
DOI:10.1109/LGRS.2022.3144735