Patent · US Expired

Fast phase difference autofocus

US5184134A · kind A · utility

19Cited by
4References
8Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateNov 27, 1991
Grant dateFeb 2, 1993
Priority date
Expiry dateNov 27, 2011

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG01S13/9019
  • WIPO fieldMeasurement
  • WIPO sectorInstruments

Abstract

A phase difference autofocus method that only requires one FFT for estimating a phase error in the entire synthetic array radar data. The phase difference autofocus method of the present invention automatically and efficiently estimates phase errors from radar signals, allowing a well focused SAR image to be produced. The present method comprises the following steps. First, each range bin is divided into two subarrays. Next, the two subarrays are complex-conjugate multiplied together to produce a cross spectrum of the two submaps produced by the subarrays. Then, the phases of each cross spectrum are aligned with an accumulated sum of the cross spectrums from previous processed range bins. The phase aligned cross spectrum is then added to the accumulated cross spectrum sum. All range bins are processed to get a final cross spectrum sum. Next, a single FFT is performed on the final cross spectrum sum to produce the cross correlation function. Then, the cross correlation function is magnitude-detected. Since the location of the peak of the cross correlation function is proportional to the phase error, a phase error estimate is obtained. Finally, the phase error correction signal is pr…

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.