Improving coherence of complex image pairs obtained by along-track bistatic SARs using range - Azimuth prefiltering

An along-track interferometric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) can be used for ground moving target indication (GMTI) by comparing two SAR images obtained at different observation times. Different geometries of the two observations bring the decorrelation noise, which will degrade the detection performance. For bistatic SARs, the decorrelation theory is quite different from that for monostatic ones. This paper deals with the coherence between two complex SAR images formed by two along-track bistatic SARs with different baseline lengths. Using the single scattering model, the coherence between the two echoes collected by the two receivers is investigated, and the full-coherence conditions are derived. Then, a new method based on range - azimuth prefiltering is proposed to improve the coherence of complex image pairs. As the precise prefiltering is complicated, its three approximate implementations are given. The effects of prefiltering on SAR images are also analyzed. Finally, simulation results validate the effectiveness of the proposed method.