An Improved Full-Aperture ScanSAR Imaging Method Integrating the MIAA Based Aperture Interpolation

In the scanning synthetic aperture radar (ScanSAR) mode, the radar antenna sweeps through different range subswaths to image a wide swath. The full-aperture imaging algorithm for ScanSAR data has been widely used because it can be realized by exploiting the existing standard high-precision Stripmap SAR processor and does not require stitch processing in the azimuth. However, both the focused image and the interferogram achieved by full-aperture processing suffer from spikes. The spikes adversely affect the ScanSAR-related applications, such as target detection and interferometry. To effectively suppress the spikes, an improved algorithm based on the missing-data iterative adaptive approach (MIAA) is proposed in this manuscript. Besides, the proposed method can also improve the azimuth resolution of ScanSAR images. Simulation and experimental results demonstrate that this algorithm has better performance when processing ScanSAR data compared with existing methods.