Extended envelope correlation for range bin alignment in ISAR

Range bin alignment is the initial step for translational motion compensation in Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar (ISAR) images. Envelope correlation with the use of reference profiles is widely known for this step. Here, an extension based on a sub-integer alignment is proposed. The Nelder-Mead algorithm is used for the optimisation step. The approach is compared with Global Range Alignment (GRA). Despite the performances of the two techniques are similar, the proposed algorithm is more robust in special cases. Live data from a high resolution Linear Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (LFMCW) millimetre-wave radar are used to validate the technique and make the comparisons.