Pseudomatched-Filter-Based ISAR Imaging Under Low SNR Condition

In this letter, a novel method for inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) imaging under a low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) condition is presented. The method is a preprocess of the range profiles before motion compensation and is based on the pseudomatched filter, whose impulse response is obtained by conjugating and reversing the average of the coarsely aligned range profile envelopes. With the utilization of the presented method, the SNR of the target range profiles is improved, the conventional ISAR motion compensation methods perform much better, and the ISAR image result is much better focused under a low SNR condition. Experimental results based on both the simulated and real data of an aircraft validate the performance of the presented method.