Detection and Focused Imaging of Moving Objects Evaluating a Sequence of Single–look Sar Images *

In multilook synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images moving objects appear defocused when their azimuth velocity component is non–zero. Therefore, they are difficult to detect in such images unless the azimuth velocity component has been compensated. Here, a method for detection of arbitrarily moving ground–based objects and for estimation and compensation of the azimuth velocity component is presented, which is based on evaluation of the temporal correlation in a sequence of single–look SAR images. These images are processed using different look center frequencies and therefore show the ground at different look angles and at different times. Thus, the velocities of the objects can be estimated by tracking the moving objects from image to image. Afterwards, the azimuth velocity component of the objects is compensated. By superimposing the compensated single–look images, a high quality multilook image with focused moving objects is obtained. The achieved absolute relative error of the azimuth velocity component is less than 11 %.