Generalized ISAR - part I: an optimal method for imaging large naval vessels

We describe a generalized inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) process that performs well under a wide variety of conditions common to the naval ISAR tests of large vessels. In particular, the generalized ISAR process performs well in the presence of moderate intensity ship roll. The process maps localized scatterers onto peaks on the ISAR plot. However, in a generalized ISAR plot, each of the two coordinates of a peak is a fixed linear combination of the three ship coordinates of the scatterer causing the peak. Combining this process with interferometry will then provide high-accuracy three-dimensional location of the important scatterers on a ship. We show that ISAR can be performed in the presence of simultaneous roll and aspect change, provided the two Doppler rates are not too close in magnitude. We derive the equations needed for generalized ISAR, both roll driven and aspect driven, and test them against simulations performed in a variety of conditions, including large roll amplitudes.