Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar Imaging With MATLAB Algorithms, 2nd Edition

7Scattering Center Representation of Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar

In radar imaging, the scattering center concept provides various advantages, especially when dealing with radar cross‐sections of objects and synthetic aperture radar/inverse synthetic aperture radar (SAR/ISAR) imaging. After the object is illuminated by an electromagnetic (EM) wave, some locations on the object provide localized radiation/scattering energy toward the observation point. The locations of these concentrated sources of scattering energy are called scattering centers. The use of the scattering center model provides a very sparse representation of ISAR imagery such that EM scattering from complex bodies can be modeled as if it is emitting from a discrete set of points on the target (Hurst and Mittra 1987; Yu et al. 1991; Carriere and Moses 1992; Bhalla and Ling 1996; Chen and Ling 2002) as illustrated in Figure 7.1. Such representation is so powerful that it may provide many advantages, including the following:

1. A simple and sparse representation of the EM scattering and/or SAR/ISAR imagery can be obtained.
2. Since the model is sparse, the scattering data and/or SAR/ISAR image can be compressed with high data compression ratios.
3. Because of the fact that the new data set is much smaller than the original data set, the reconstruction of the scattering data and/or SAR/ISAR image can be obtained quickly.
4. The model can be used to interpolate the scattering data and/or SAR/ISAR image with infinite resolution. ...