Prominent Point Processing Autofocus

The PPP algorithm, initially used in resolving moving target imaging in synthetic aperture

radar (SAR) [5], utilizes information from prominent points to correct phase errors and

convert nonuniform rotation into a uniform rotation. Multiple PPP algorithm tracks multiple

selected prominent scatterers in a target to extract motion parameters .

In spotlight SAR, a motion compensation method must be able to remove space variant

and invariant errors. The multiple PPP algorithm can remove both the space-invariant and

variant errors. In the multiple PPP, the first prominent point is usually selected for removing

translational motion and adjusting the phase of the received signals so as to form a new

image center. Then, a second prominent point, which is for correcting the phase error

induced by nonuniform rotations, must be selected. If necessary, we can also select a third

prominent point for estimating the rotation rate and the azimuth scale factor of the resulting

image to achieve complete focusing [1].

However, in ISAR, after course motion compensation, the image may still be smeared

due to phase errors induced by the target rotation and residual translation errors. To focus the image, we
need to identify a prominent point at the rotation center of the target and track its

phase variation. Then, an appropriate approach for searching an optimal phase function must

be used. Finally, by applying the conjugate of the estimated optimal phase function, the

image can be focused on the rotation center.

Phase Gradient Autofocus

The PGA algorithm is an industry-grade autofocus technique that has been well researched and

extended many times to improve its performance. The main steps of PGA involve

(1) segmenting the noisy radar image into bins along the range dimension

(2) selecting bins with the highest signal to noise ratio (SNR) and centering the strongest

response in each bin through circular shifting

(3) windowing the bins to remove other weaker responses

After these steps, various techniques such as maximum likelihood estimate (MLE) can be used to
estimate the phase error function and undo the phase error repeatedly, until the algorithm converges.

The PGA, proposed in has been widely used in SAR autofocus. It was developed to make arobust
estimation of the gradient of the phase error in defocused SAR image data. If a complextarget has no
stable prominent scatterer point, the phase gradient (i.e., phase difference frompulse to pulse) can be
estimated by measuring the pulse-to-pulse phase difference at each range cell and averaging them.
Finally, the phase correction can be made iteratively.

The iterative PGA allows robust and nonparametric estimation and exploits the redundancy of the
phase-error information contained in a degraded SAR image. Because the performance of the PGA is
independent of the content in a SAR scene, there is no need to require isolated point-like reflections in
the SAR scene like the PPP algorithm required.

Image Contrast-Based Autofocus

The image contrast-based autofocus (ICBA) aims to form well-focused ISAR images by maximizing the
image contrast (IC), which is an indicator of the image quality. This characteristic makes such an
algorithm different from other techniques such as those described

1. Parametric nature of the ICBA: the radial motion of a target’s point is described by a

parametric function (typically a Taylor polynomial)

2. Radial motion compensation is accomplished in one step, therefore avoiding the range

alignment step