VELOCITY ESTIMATION OF MOVING TARGETS BY AZIMUTH DIFFERENTIALS OF SAR IMAGES;PRELIMINARY RESULTS

We present an efficient and robust technique to estimate the velocity of moving targets from a single SAR image. In SAR images, azimuth image shift is a well known phenomenon, which is observed in moving targets having slant-range velocity. Most methods estimated the velocity of moving targets from the distance difference between the road and moving targets or between ship and the ship wake. However, the methods could not be always applied to moving targets because it is difficult to find the road and the ship wake. We adopted a method estimating the velocity of moving targets from azimuth differentials of range-compressed image. This method is based on an assumption that Doppler center frequency shift of moving target causes a phase difference in azimuth differential values. The phase difference is linearly distorted by Doppler rate due to the geometry of SAR image. The linear distortion is eliminated from phase removal procedure, and the constant phase difference is estimated. Finally, range velocity estimates for moving targets are retrieved. This technique is tested using an ENVISAT ASAR image in which several unknown ships are presented. The theoretical accuracy of this technique is discussed by SAR simulation. The advantages and disadvantages of this method over the conventional method are also discussed.