Abstract
Polar fomat algorithm (PFA) was derived from medical imaging theory, known as back projection, to process synthetic aperture radar(SAR) data. The difference between the operating condition of SAR and back projection assumption makes two distortions. First, the focusing performance of PFA is degraded in proportion to distances from the scene center. Second, the geometric accuracy in SAR images is distorted. Several methods were introduced to mitigate the distortions, but some disadvantages, such as the geometric discontinuity, are arisen when sub-images are combined. This paper proposes the novel method to compensate the geometric distortion with chirp Z-transform (CZT). This method corrects precisely the geometric errors without any problems, because a whole image can be processed all at once.