An CSAR Imaging Strategy for Enhanced Ground Moving Target Tracking and Focusing

In recent years, the tracking and imaging of ground moving targets in Circular Synthetic Aperture Radar (CSAR) have garnered considerable interest among researchers. This paper introduces a rapid CSAR imaging strategy aimed at reducing calculation time and enhancing the focusing effect on moving targets. The proposed strategy enables real-time target search, tracking, and automatic selection of the imaging area based on the target’s real-time position.The first step involves determining the object’s motion trajectory using a combination of the target search algorithm and the Kalman filter. Subsequently, the imaging plane is selected based on the real-time position of the object. In the second step, full-aperture data is segmented into sub-apertures and then approximated as linear arrays for imaging. The final step involves sub-images fusion to produce the ultimate CSAR image.This method significantly reduces imaging time, yielding well-focused CSAR images and real-time motion trajectories of moving targets. The proposed algorithm is verified by both simulation and processing real data collected with our mmWave imager prototype utilizing commercially available 77-GHz MIMO radar sensors. Through the experimental results we verified the performance and the superiority of the our algorithm.