Three-Dimensional Interferometric ISAR Imaging Algorithm Based on Cross Coherence Processing

Interferometric inverse synthetic aperture radar (InISAR) has received significant attention in three-dimensional (3D) imaging due to its applications in target classification and recognition. The traditional two-dimensional (2D) ISAR image can be interpreted as a filtered projection of a 3D target’s reflectivity function onto an image plane. Such a plane usually depends on unknown radar-target geometry and dynamics, which results in difficulty interpreting an ISAR image. Using the L-shape InISAR imaging system, this paper proposes a novel 3D target reconstruction algorithm based on Dechirp processing and 2D interferometric ISAR imaging, which can jointly estimate the effective rotation vector and the height of scattering center. In order to consider only the areas of the target with meaningful interferometric phase and mitigate the effects of noise and sidelobes, a special cross-channel coherence-based detector (C3D) is introduced. Compared to the multichannel CLEAN technique, advantages of the C3D include the following: (1) the computational cost is lower without complex iteration and (2) the proposed method, which can avoid propagating errors, is more suitable for a target with multi-scattering points. Moreover, misregistration and its influence on target reconstruction are quantitatively discussed. Theoretical analysis and numerical simulations confirm the suitability of the algorithm for 3D imaging of multi-scattering point targets with high efficiency and demonstrate the reliability and effectiveness of the proposed method in the presence of noise.