Multi-channel moving target radar detection and imaging apparatus and method

A radar signal processing method comprising:

• transmitting from a moving platform a series of radio-frequency pulses toward a ground surface;
• receiving, via an antenna structure mounted to said moving platform, radar signals reflected from stationary and moving objects;
• digitizing the received radar signals;
• operating on the digitzed radar signals to produce a plurality of pseudo-radar signals in respective pseudochannels;
• processing the pseudo-radar signals to produce a plurality of SAR-processed signals;
• forming or selecting at least one grouping of said SAR-processed signals;
• and
• performing clutter suppression operations on said grouping of said SAR-processed signals.

A synthetic aperture moving target indication radar system, comprising:

• a transmitting antenna connected to a radio frequency generator;
• a plurality of a cardinality N>1 of receiving antennas 1, . . . , n, . . . , N;
• a plurality of said cardinality N of respective coherent radio frequency receivers connected to respective said receiving antennas;
• a collection of sets of cardinalities Kn1 of signal delay taps 1, . . . , k, . . . Kn connected to feeds of respective said receiving antennas for creating time-displaced signals at delays tl, . . . , tk, . . . , tKn;
• a plurality of said cardinality N>1 of SAR processors operatively connected to respective said sets of signal delay taps for performing SAR processing on respective sets of said time-displaced received signals and outputting respective pluralities of said cardinality Kn of SAR processed time-displaced signals, each said processed time-displaced signal further comprising a plurality Pnk of outputs in Doppler bins 1, . . . , p, . . . Pnk;
• a system formation module for selecting a group of a cardinality Z of subsets of cardinalities Ul, . . . , Uz, . . . , UZ from a total possible collection of cardinality Kl+ . . . +Kn+ . . . +KN of said SAR processed delayed signals;
• and
• a plurality of a cardinality Z of MTI processing modules 1, . . . , z, . . . , Z for producing moving target indication output signals from each respective subset Uz of SAR processed delayed signals.

A synthetic aperture moving target indication radar system, comprising:

• a transmitting antenna connected to a radio frequency generator;
• a plurality of cardinality N>1 of receiving antennas 1, . . . , n, . . . , N connected to respective coherent radio frequency receivers;
• a plurality of sets of cardinalities Kn1 of signal delay taps 1, . . . , k, . . . Kn connected to feeds of respective said receiving antenna for creating time-displaced signals of delays tl, . . . , tk, . . . , tKn
• a plurality of said cardinality N of coarse SAR processing modules operatively connected to respective said sets of signal delay taps for producing sets of coarse Doppler image signals of a cardinality Q;
• a system formation module connected to outputs of said plurality of coarse SAR processing modules for selecting a collection of a cardinality ZQ of subsets of cardinalities Ul, . . . , Uz, . . . , UZ of a total collection of size N x Q of said SAR processed delayed signals;
• a plurality of a cardinality ZQ of MTI processing modules 1, . . . , Z, . . . , ZQ connected to outputs of said systems formation module for producing moving target indication output signals from each respective subset Uz of SAR processed delayed signals;
• and
• a plurality of cardinality ZQ of fine SAR processors for coherently integrating respective Q-fold signal output from said MTI processing modules.