3D Radar Imaging

TSC will further develop a new three-dimensional Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar (ISAR) imaging algorithm that creates a 3D radar image of a ballistic target in arbitrary torque-free motion and simultaneously estimates its complete rotational state. The algorithm development and testing will be carried out using Project Hercules high-fidelity simulations and available measured flight test data. The TSC algorithm exploits the fact that the motion of such targets, and hence the space-time paths of scatterers rigidly attached to them, are deterministically constrained by Euler’s torque-free equations of motion. The assumption of linear variation of scatterer phase with time (constant Doppler assumption) is eliminated in favor of modeled space-time trajectories depending on generalized coordinates. TSC demonstrated the feasibility of 3D ISAR imaging of realistic ballistic targets in Phase I, and also demonstrated the unique capability to precisely estimate the rotational motion state of a simulated target via optimization. The capability to image objects in three dimensions without the need of motion knowledge from other algorithms or sensors is a clear advance in the state of the art for ISAR imaging. TSC will fully develop and evaluate this promising radar signal processing algorithm for implementation in the radar elements of BMD.