A pipelined signal processor for real-time generation of radar images

A special-purpose processor architecture for real-time spaceborne synthetic aperture radar strip-mapping mode data processing is described. This processor uses the fast Fourier transform (FFT) correlation technique to perform the range pulse compression function, and a hybrid FFT time-domain finite-impulse-response filtering approach to perform the range migration correction and azimuth pulse compression functions. The processing functions of this processor are pipelined to gain high throughput. This processor has the advantages of (1) being very efficient in both arithmetic computation and range migration correction and (2) requiring minimal control complexity