FPGA-Based Parallel Processing for Fast Time-Domain Imaging Algorithm of SAR

In complex synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging configurations, such as bistatic SAR, time-domain algorithms are less constrained and more accurate than frequency-domain algorithms. But they have not be applied to real-time imaging well because of large computation. The back-projection algorithm based on wavenumber-domain spectral splicing (WFBP) that emerged recently can be used to resolve this contradiction. In this paper, an efficient implementation architecture of this algorithm is designed based on FPGA. Parallel structures are used for sub-aperture BP imaging and images fusion. The imaging results and speed of the system is verified by simulations and experiments. It runs WFBP over a image of size 1024×512 in 0.131s, significantly accelerating imaging while maintaining accuracy of time-domain algorithms.