Polar format algorithm with minimum memory requirements

Polar Format Algorithm (PFA), is a computationally efficient Spotlight-mode SAR image formation method that achieves high resolution imagery. This method requires that the whole data collected during the aperture time to be stored at the memory. In this paper a method to drive the fundamental steps of the PFA algorithm in real time, the range and azimuth interpolation, is proposed. The method also decimates the data to a minimum amount so as to reduce the storage requirements and latency.