Inverse synthetic aperture radar imaging of nonuniformly rotating targets

Range-Doppler imaging is the basic method of inverse synthetic aperture radar, which is based on the uniform rotation of targets. Nonuniform rotation can occur to maneuvering targets, which produces smeared images. A constantly acceleratively rotating model is used here instead of the traditional uniformly rotating model. The generalized marginal integration along straight lines with varying slopes is calculated over the time-frequency plane. The imaging quality is improved by using the new method. (C) 1996 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers.