Apply Spatially Variant Apodization to SAR/INSAR Image Processing

Spatially Variant Apodization (SVA) is one of nonlinear apodization methods used for sidelobe control in SAR/ISAR or optical imagery while maintaining mainlobe resolution unchanged. In this paper, we apply SVA to process RADARSAT image and show that by using SVA one can get better resolution compared with using classic windowing techniques such as Hamming, etc. Also, we investigate the impact of SVA for phase sensitive applications and find that SVA can be used to enhance coherence of image pair for INSAR. SIR-C/X X-band experimental data are processed to demonstrate the significant effect of SVA.