Near-field radar 3D synthetic aperture imaging based on Stolt interpolation

Synthetic aperture processing for radar data can improve resolution of radar image, and increase the detecting ability of radar. Utilizing phase and amplitude information recorded over a 2D aperture can reconstruct a focused 3D image of the target. Quasimonostatic mode is used and the transmitting antenna transmits in step frequency. A new Stolt interpolation method which can increase accuracy of interpolation is presented. Also the method requires little computation time. 3D image of the target is achieved through the fast Fourier transform after interpolation. The algorithm is described in detail and numerous imaging results from simulations and experiment are presented. These results show that the algorithm for 3D image-reconstruction based on this interpolation method presented can produce a microwave 3D image with high resolutions.