Slope-based frame selection and scaling technique for ship ISAR imaging

The authors address the problem of optimum imaging time selection and angular motion estimation for ship ISAR or hybrid SAR/ISAR imaging. The aim is to select proper imaging times and to estimate ship angular motion in order to obtain high-quality top view or side view scaled images of the ship, suitable for processing by classification/identification procedures. For this purpose, a new technique is proposed, able to select the time instants better suited for top or side view image formation and to estimate the rotation motion for image scaling. The technique is based on a novel model of the phase/Doppler frequency of the generic ship scatterer and operates entirely in the range-Doppler image domain (as obtained via Fourier transform) by using the slopes of some extracted linear features, thus without requiring coherent processing. The performance of the complete ISAR technique is analysed in depth; the results of the application of the proposed technique to both simulated and live ISAR data prove the effectiveness of the proposed approach.