Low-Cost High-Speed Radar Imaging Techniques for Persistent Surveillance

Persistent surveillance sensing allows for the production of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) movies, sometimes called video SAR, that promise to allow continuous tracking of moving targets on the ground in dense traffic environments and through move-stop-move cycles that confound traditional tracking approaches. In this effort we implement and test a fast back projection algorithm as well as our modified polar format based algorithm on a large scale parallel processing system. Testing thus far has shown that both of our approaches can dramatically reduce the number of processors required to form continuous video SAR sequences for very large scenes. BENEFIT: This research will allow real-time production of very large synthetic aperture radar movies. The algorithm facilitates fast production of very large images; however, it may also be used to reduce the computational resources required for any existing airborne radar system. These existing radar systems may be used for anything from terrain mapping and border patrol to site monitoring for counter terrorism.