Doppler Parameters Estimation for Bistatic

Forward-looking SAR via ACFT

Shunsheng Zhang1 , Zhiteng Ning1 , Yongqiang Zhang1
1

Cheng Hu2

University of Electronic Science and Technology of China,

Chengdu, P. R. Ch ina
zhangss.bit@gmail.co m
Tat Soon Yeo 3
3
National Un iversity of Singapore, Singapore
eleyeots@nus.edu.sg

AbstractFor high-precision synthetic aperture radar (S AR)

processing, the estimation of Doppler centroid and Doppler
frequency rate is essential for well-focused image. In this paper,
we present a new method for estimation of Doppler parameters
in bistatic forward-looking S AR (BFS AR). After range cell
migration (RCM) of BFS AR is corrected by using the crosscorrelation technique in inverse S AR, analog chirp-Fourier
transform (ACFT) is applied to estimate the Doppler frequency
rate. Afterwards, the unambiguous Doppler centroid is obtained
by combining ACFT with resolving Doppler ambiguity.
Experimental results show that the estimation errors of Doppler
centroid and Doppler frequency rate are less than 0.2% and
0.15%, respectively.
Index TermsBistatic forward-looking S AR (BFS AR),
Doppler parameters estimation, Doppler centroid, Doppler
frequency rate, analog chirp-Fourier transform (ACFT).

I. INT RODUCTION
Due to the advantage of all-weather and day/night,
synthetic aperture radar (SAR) beco mes a candidate tool in
many military and civilian applications. However, because of
azimuth ambiguit ies and poor Doppler resolution, conventional
monostatic SAR is not applicable in forward-looking direction.
While bistatic forward-looking SAR (BFSAR), whose
transmitter and receiver are mounted on separate platforms, can
be used to avoid image ambiguit ies and improve the azimuth
resolution for forward-looking imag ing. Therefore, BFSAR has
attracted much attention, and its configuration, resolution
theory, field test and imaging algorith ms are investigated in [1],
[2].
The estimation of the Doppler parameters including the
Doppler centroid and the Doppler frequency rate is necessary
for high-quality SA R processing. Since the azimuth data are
sampled by the pulse repetition frequency (PRF), Doppler
centroid can be expressed in two parts: the baseband Doppler
centroid and the Doppler ambiguity number. In the baseband
Doppler centroid estimation, several algorithms [3], [4] have
been proposed to obtain reliable estimate. To resolve the
Doppler ambiguity of conventional SAR, a nu mber of
algorithms have been used, such as mult iple PRFs [5],

c
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IEEE

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cchchb@gmail.co m

wavelength diversity (WDA) [6], mu ltilook algorith ms [7].

Nevertheless, the accuracy and robustness of the Doppler
ambiguity number estimate still needs improvement [8].
Meanwhile, conventional Doppler frequency rate estimation of
monostatic SAR can be estimated by phase difference (PD)
algorithm [9], phase gradient autofocus (PGA) algorithm [10],
map drift (MD) algorithm [11]. However, all these algorithms
have the problem of converging at local optimized solution.
In BFSAR, Li et al. have proposed two different methods
to estimate the Doppler centroid [12], [13]. Both algorithms
require that the range curvature is much smaller than the range
walk and the former can be neglected in BFSAR processing.
However, when the resolution of the BFSA R system is high
and the range curvature may cross several range resolution
cells during a single synthetic aperture time, this will degrade
the accuracy of both methods. In addition, the Doppler
frequency rate estimation of BFSAR has not been reported yet
[12], [13].
The main contribution of this paper is the presentation of
a method of the Doppler parameters estimation for BFSAR in
case of existing range curvature. Firstly, we apply analog chirp
Fourier transform (ACFT) to estimate the Doppler frequency
rate of BFSAR after performing range cell migration (RCM)
correction (RCMC). Then, the ACFT and Doppler ambiguity
resolving are combined to perform the estimation of the
Doppler centroid. Simu lated data experiments are provided to
demonstrate that the proposed method can achieve accurate
Doppler parameters estimatation considering the range
curvature of BFSAR.
II. GEOM ETRY AND DOPPLER PARAM ETERS OF
BFSAR
The BFSA R configuration with a stationary transmitter
and an airborne receiver is shown in Fig.1, where the receiver
moves along the y-axis direction with velocity v . To represent
the range history and analyze the algorithm, we take the target
located at the centre of scene as an example. The total d istance
fro m the transmitter to the scene centre and then back to the
receiver is

742

R t 

RT  RR  t 

(1)
where t is the slow time, M is the look down angle of the
receiver,

RT and RR are the slant ranges at the time when the

target is illu minates by the beam centre for the transmitter and
receiver, respectively.

Transmiter

v
M

III. DOPPLER P A RAMETERS EST IMATION BASED ON ACFT

A. Proposed Method
The received signal of BFSAR after demodulation and
range compression is

the fast time. The amplitude is ignored to simplify the echo

model. The cross-correlation technique [14] is used to correct
the RCM . After RCM C, (7) can be rewritten as

RT

RR  t 

RR

Rref
2S R  t 
s W , t  sinc 'fW W 
exp  j
(8)
c
O

R
where ref is the reference range. Then, we reformat the signal
corresponding to the aligned range cell as

2S R  t 
s  t  exp  j

X
At the aperture centre time, (1) can be expanded into
Taylors series:

R  t  | RT  RR  v cos M t 

v 2 sin 2 M 2
t
2 RR

(2)

Generally, the linear and quadratic term in (2) account for the
range walk and range curvature, respectively. The absolute
value of the maximu m range curvature is

v 2 sin 2 M 2
Ts
2 RR

(3)

where Ts is the synthetic aperture time. Let

Ur

be the range

2S  RT  RR 

s  t  exp  j
 j 2S f dct  jS f dr t 2 (10)
O

Thus, the ACFT [15] can be used to estimate Doppler

frequency rate. For an analog signal s  t  , its ACFT is
f

s  t  exp  jS  2 ft  kt  dt

S  f ,k

To reduce the computation time, the ACFT is div ided

into two steps, namely, course and fine search. The prior
informat ion of velocity and angle is used to determine the
initial value k0 of Doppler frequency rate in terms of (5).
Then, the coarse search region

Here, the

coarse step size

maximu m range curvature do not satisfies

U r / 2 . So, the range curvature can not be

neglected.
The Doppler centroid and Doppler frequency rate can be
calculated as

f dc

f dr

1 dR  t 
O dt t

v cos M

2
1 d R t 

O dt 2 t

v 2 sin 2 M

O RR

(4)

(5)

where O is the wavelength. Substituting (4) and (5) into (2),

we have

(11)

f

resolution bin. According to the parameters listed in Table 1 in

Section IV we calcu late 'Rcmax 3.704m and U r 1.5m .

+ Rc max 

(9)

Substituting (6) into (9) yields

Fig. 1. Geometry model of BFSAR

'Rcmax

(6)

R  t 
2S R  t 
s W , t  sinc 'fW W 
exp  j
(7)
c
O

where ' fW is the bandwidth, c is the speed of light, and W is

Receiver

1
R  t  | RT  RR  O f dct  O f dr t 2
2

RT  RR2   vt   2RR vt cos M

and

 k0  E , k0  E 

and the

'k1 are set, where the determination of E

'k1 will be discussed later in Sect ion III. B. The coarse

search is conducted, and the corresponding estimation is

Then

we

determinate

the

fine

search

k0 .

reg ion

 k0  'k1 / 2, k0  'k1 / 2 and the fine step size 'k2 . After

detecting the peak of

S  f , k  , the Doppler frequency rate is

obtained.
According to the nature of ACFT, the Doppler baseband
frequency and Doppler frequency rate can be estimated at the
PRF / N a
same time. However, because the step size 'f
is determined by both the pulse repetition frequency (PRF)

2015 IEEE 5th Asia-Pacific Conference on Synthetic Aperture Radar(APSAR)

743

and sampled pulse nu mber

N a , it is d ifficult to achieve

accurate estimat ion of the Doppler centroid. To resolve the

problem, we apply ACFT again to estimate the Doppler
baseband frequency. Firstly, we remove the quadratic term in
(9) by the mult iplication of

exp   jS f dr t 2  , where f dr is an

estimate of the Doppler frequency rate. Then, we take the

phase after multip licat ion and obtain a new function with
quadratic term, which can be expressed as

2S  RT  RR 

s  t  exp  j
t  j 2S f dct 2
O

A. Doppler Parameters Estimation in a Noisy Background

The effect of noise on the Doppler parameters estimation
with +v 0.5 m/s is shown in Fig. 2. Here, wh ite Gaus sian
noise with different signal-to-ratios is added to the echo data.
We conduct one hundred times Monte-Carlo simulations for
each SNR and get the absolute errors with SNR ranging fro m 14d B to 0 d B.

(12)

We use similar coarse and fine search to obtain the

estimate of the Doppler baseband frequency f base . The
maximu m of the variat ion for the Doppler baseband
frequency J , coarse step size 'f1 , and fine step size ' f 2 will
be discussed in Section III. B. In addit ion, the ambigu ity
number

M am can be found in [8]. Thus, the unamb iguous

Doppler centroid is

f base  M am PRF

f dc

(13)

B. Determination of ACFT Region and Step Size

(a)

Suppose that the maximu m of velocity error is

'vmax ,

the maximu m E of the variation for the Doppler frequency

rate the J can be calculated by (5) and (4), respectively.

 v  'vmax 

sin 2 M

O RR

cos M

v 2 sin 2 M
O RR

(14)

'vmax

(15)

The fine step size is determined by the accuracy requirement

of Doppler frequency rate and Doppler centroid.

'k2

'f 2

'f dr
'f dc

(16)

Generally, the coarse step size can be determined by

2E
'k1
2J
'f1

'k1
'k2
'f1
'f 2

(b)
(17)

Fig. 2. Absolute errors with different SNRs. (a) Absolute errors of Doppler
centroid. (b) Absolute errors of Doppler frequency rate.

(18)

According to the simulation parameters, the true Doppler

centroid and Doppler frequency rate are f dc 3438.2 Hz
and

IV. SIMULATION AND ANALYSIS

In this section, simulations are performed to verify the
effectiveness of the proposed method. The simulat ion
parameters are listed as follows: O 0.03 m, v 120 m/s,

2 s, M 59.04D , RR
the chirp bandwidth B 200 MHz.

PRF

744

200 Hz, Ts

5831 m, and

f dr

169.99 Hz/s, respectively. It can be shown that

the estimat ion error of the Doppler centroid is within 0.4% of

the true one, and the absolute error of the Doppler frequency
rate ranges fro m 0 Hz/s to 0.3 Hz/s. This indicates that the
proposed method can obtain accurate estimat ion of the
Doppler parameters even if the SNR is lower than 0 d B.
B. Comparison with the Geometry-based Approach
The proposed method is compared with the geometry based approach [12]. Assuming that the forward velocity error

2015 IEEE 5th Asia-Pacific Conference on Synthetic Aperture Radar(APSAR)

is 0.2 m/s, the estimated Doppler centroids using these two

methods are shown in Table 1.
The true Doppler centroid is 2061.2 Hz in terms of (4). It
is obvious that the proposed method can obtain the accurate
Doppler centroid estimation, while the geometry -based
approach can not. This is because that the range curvature has
been compensated before estimating the Doppler centro id in
the proposed method.
TABLE I. COMPARISON OF THE P ROPOSED METHOD WITH GEOMETRY BASED APPROACH

Estimation result

Absolute error

Geo metry-based
approach

2023.1 Hz

38.1 Hz

Proposed method

2060.1 Hz

1.1 Hz

V. CONCLUSION
A method of Doppler centroid and Doppler frequency
rate for trans mitter-fixed BFSA R is proposed. The proposed
method applies the ACFT to estimate the Doppler frequency
rate after correcting RCM through the cross -correlation
technique. And the accurate Doppler centroid can be obtained
by combin ing ACFT with Doppler amb iguity resolving.
Simu lation results indicate that the proposed method not only
can attain robust estimation of the Doppler parameters, but
also outperform the geometry-based approach in case of
existing range curvature. Moreover, this method can also be
applied to other bistatic SAR configuration.
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