• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.410-418
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• 2017

Results of an analysis of the continuous motion effect for FMCW-SAR system and a signal processing to correct it are presented in this paper. SAR images reconstructed by back-projection algorithm are included as well. To analyze how platform velocity and sampling frequency affect the continuous motion effect, FMCW signal model was used, and the signal processing in time-doppler(t, $k_u$) domain was adopted. Then, back-projection algorithm and modified matched-filter was used to reconstruct SAR images, and it was validated using measured data by airborne FMCW-SAR system in X-band frequency.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.29 no.7
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• pp.523-531
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• 2018

An analysis technique for detecting moving targets on a single-channel airborne frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) technology and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image is presented. To analyze the relative velocities of moving targets, an FMCW-based signal model for stationary and moving targets was studied, and a SAR ambiguity function considering its signal model was simulated. The relative velocities of the moving targets on a reconstructed SAR image can be estimated by peak searching of the SAR ambiguity function, and the stationary and moving targets are easily distinguished when there is a large variation of the relative velocity. Analysis results of the moving targets on a reconstructed FMCW-SAR image, using practical airborne data and a SAR ambiguity process, are compared with the in situ testing in the study area.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.28 no.9
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• pp.723-732
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• 2017

Simplified factorizing-technique to improve the efficiency on computational procedure and the complexity of the conventional back-projection algorithm, which is used to reconstruct airborne FMCW-SAR image, is suggested, and the reconstruction process of SAR image by this simplified factorizing-technique are presented in this paper. This technique can be efficiently applied to airborne FMCW-SAR having a relatively narrow beamwidth and long synthetic aperture length, and its basic rationale is to exclude the data that has low level of contribution during computational procedure. Using the raw data of practical airborne FMCW-SAR system, performances of this proposed technique such as SAR image quality and processing time were compared and analyzed.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.316-319
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• 2018

To detect the ground moving target, forward-looking SAR images obtained from the FMCW radar can be exploited. However, the quality of the SAR image is deteriorated due to the turbulence or fluctuation because of the flight path condition during the missile movement. We herein propose an entropy-minimizing autofocus method to compensate the motion error of forward-looking SAR. In particular, owing to the geometry of the forward-looking SAR, the motion error affects the SAR image in the two-dimensional (2D) form (azimuth and time axis). Therefore, we suggest a 2D autofocus method for the motion compensation.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.37 no.5_3
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• pp.1349-1359
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• 2021

Acquisition of precise position and velocity information of GNSS-INS (Global Navigation Satellite System; Inertial Navigation System) sensors in obtaining SAR SLC (Single Look Complex) images from raw data using BPA (Backprojection Algorithm) was regarded decisive. Several studies on BPA were accompanied by Kalman Filter for sensor noise oppression, but often implemented once where insufficient information was given to determine whether the filtering was effectively applied. Multiple operation of Kalman Filter on GNSS-INS sensor was presented in order to assess the effective order of sensor noise calibration. FMCW (Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave)-SAR raw data was collected from twice airborne experiments whose GNSS-INS information was practically and repeatedly filtered via Kalman Filter. It was driven that the FMCW-SAR raw data with diverse path information could derive different order of Kalman Filter with optimum operation of BPA image restoration.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.29 no.9
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• pp.722-730
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• 2018

This paper presents an analysis technique for estimating the properties of a target's power-spill patterns observed in reconstructed SAR images, which in turn depend on the setup squint angle of the FMCW signal-based SAR system. The target responses observed in the reconstructed SAR images were affected by the range-direction and azimuth-direction of a wave projected on the ground, and the obtained results were analyzed by applying three-dimensional squinted SAR geometry. Furthermore, the rotation patterns were verified through simulations based on the FMCW signal model and back-projection algorithm. This paper summarizes the obtained evaluation results as a function of SAR geometry and squint angle.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.459-469
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• 2017

An air-to-ground guidance missile aimed to hit a main battle tank(MBT) should detect a ground moving target and estimate the target position to guide. In this paper, we detect a front ground moving target by using FMCW(Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave) and estimate the position by forward-looking SAR(Synthetic Aperture Radar) via scanning certain front ground section by steering a beam with narrow beamwidth left to right mechanically. Also, by MLE(Maximum Likelihood Estimation), degree of how fast the target approach or recede from the radar can be figured out from the estimated radial velocity of the moving target. Subsequently, we generate a radar image via corrected matched filter from phase history including the radial velocity.

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.265-272
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• 2023

In this paper, a GPU-accelerated kernel of range Doppler algorithm (RDA) was developed for real-time image formation based on frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) synthetic aperture radar (SAR). A pinned memory was used to minimize the data transfer time between the host and the GPU device, and the kernel was configured to perform all RDA operations on the GPU to minimize the number of data transfers. The dataset was obtained through the FMCW drone SAR experiment, and the GPU acceleration effect was measured in an intel i7-9700K CPU, 32GB RAM, and Nvidia RTX 3090 GPU environment. Including the data transfer time between host and devices, it was measured to be accelerated up to 3.41 times compared to the CPU, and when only the acceleration effect of operation was measured without including the data transfer time, it was confirmed that it could be accelerated up to 156 times.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.39 no.6_1
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• pp.1245-1254
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• 2023

Significant research has been conducted on the W-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) system that utilizes the 77 GHz frequency modulation continuous wave (FMCW) radar. To reconstruct the high-resolution W-band SAR image, it is necessary to transform the point cloud acquired from the stereo cameras or the LiDAR in the direction of 6 degrees of freedom (DOF) and apply them to the SAR signal processing. However, there are difficulties in matching images due to the different geometric structures of images acquired from different sensors. In this study, we present the method to extract an optimized depth map by obtaining 6 DOF of the point cloud using a gradient descent method based on the entropy of the SAR image. An experiment was conducted to reconstruct a tree, which is a major road environment object, using the constructed W-band SAR system. The SAR image, reconstructed using the entropy-based gradient descent method, showed a decrease of 53.2828 in mean square error and an increase of 0.5529 in the structural similarity index, compared to SAR images reconstructed from radar coordinates.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.27 no.9
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• pp.854-864
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• 2016

The use of small drone platform has become a popular topic in these days but its application for SAR operation has been little known due to the burden of the payload implementation. Drone platforms are distinguished from the conventional UAV system by the increased vulnerability to the turbulences, control-errors and poor motion stability. Consequently, sophisticated motion compensation may be required to guarantee the successful acquisition of high quality SAR imagery. Extremely limited power and mass budgets may prevent the use of additional hardwares for motion compensation and the difficulty of SAR focusing is further aggravated. In this paper, we have carried out a feasibility study of mico-SAR drone operation. We present the image acquisition results from the preliminary flight tests and a quality assessment is followed on the experimental SAR images. The in-flight motion errors derived from the unique drone movements are investigated and attempts have been made to compensate for the geometrical and phase errors caused by motions against the nominal trajectory. Finally, the successful operation of drone SAR system is validated through the focussed SAR images taken over test sites.