A performance evaluation of SAR-GMTI missions for maritime applications

Abstract

This paper proposes a new optimized multichannel synthetic aperture radar (SAR) configuration, based on receiving antennas with nonuniformly displaced phase centers, intended for ground moving target indication (GMTI) applications over maritime scenarios. This system is compared with current SAR missions, such as TerraSAR-X (TSX) or TanDEM-X (TDX). The GMTI capabilities of the different configurations are analyzed in a two-level performance approach. First, an intensive numerical simulation evaluation, based on Monte Carlo trials, is carried out in order to characterize the probabilities of detection under different system parameters and scenario conditions. Different GMTI techniques, i.e., displaced phase center antenna, along-track interferometry, and extended displaced phase center antenna, are assessed. In a second step, synthetic simulated SAR data, obtained in a study case scenario, is used to demonstrate the potential improvement of the proposed multichannel configuration compared with current SAR missions, providing subclutter visibility for maritime surveillance of small and slowly moving boats.