Journal of Communications and Information Networks, Vol.3, No.1, Mar. 2018
DOI: 10.1007/s41650-018-0007-4 Research paper
Time-Weighting Symmetric Accumulated
Cross-Correlation Method of Parameter Estimation
Jiayin Xue, Xiao Han, Lirong An, Qinyu Zhang
Abstract—Motion compensation based on the param-
eter estimation of a moving target has a strong influence
on the inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) imaging
quality. For the target with built-in disturbance com-
ponents or under an extremely low signal-to-noise ratio
(SNR), conventional parameter estimation methods based
on cross-correlation processing of adjacent profiles, such
as the cross-correlation method and the accumulated
cross-correlation method, give sizable aligned errors and
subsequently produce low-quality ISAR images. The
fractional Fourier transform is capable of concentrating
the signal power; however, a large computational com-
plexity is induced by searching the matched order. In
view of the problems above, a time-weighting symmetric
accumulated cross-correlation method is proposed herein.
This method maps the spectrum of the range profile
into a single-peak envelope to reduce range alignment
errors, and presents a symmetric accumulated manner
to offset the accumulated error. The simulation results
demonstrate that the proposed method yields much better
estimation precision than other methods, and yields
extremely low computational complexity.
Keywords—ISAR, motion compensation, parameter es-
timation, time-weighting, cross-correlation
I. INTRODUCTION
I
nverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) utilizes the rela-
tive motion between the target and the radar to expand the
space aperture during coherent processing interval (CPI) to
realize two-dimensional (2-D) imaging
[1,2]
. To meet the high
resolution requirements in range dimension, the ISAR system
typically emits a set of LFM (Chirp) signals or step frequency
(SF) signals with large time-bandwidth products. Thus, the
Manuscript received Dec. 11, 2017; accepted Feb. 15, 2018.
J. Y. Xue, X. Han, L. R. An, Q. Y. Zhang. Department of Electronics and
Information Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology Shenzhen Graduate
School, Shenzhen 518055, China.
This work is supported in part by the National Science Foundation for the
Distinguished Young Scholars of China (No. 61525103), and the Shenzhen
Fundamental Research Project (No. JCYJ20150930150304185).
echo signal can be approximated as a linear combination of
multicomponent Chirp signals, and its range profile appears
as the combination of multiple expanded spectrums accord-
ingly. The implementation of ISAR imaging is primarily
based on the conventional range-Doppler (RD) algorithm
[3]
,
and the motion compensation (MOCOMP)
[4]
is the key proce-
dure of the RD algorithm. Because only if profiles are aligned
in range dimension, the scattering points can be distinguished
in azimuth direction
[5]
.
Common MOCOMP algorithms can be classified into two
types. One is based on strong scattering points of the
target
[5-9]
. But according to the analysis of practical test data,
it is difficult to stably track interested points during the whole
dwelling time. So the application of such algorithms is not
very wide in practice. The other is based on cross-correlation
processing of adjacent echoes, such as the cross-correlation
method (CCM)
[10]
, the accumulated cross-correlation method
(ACCM)
[11]
, and the cross-correlation method based on the
fractional Fourier transform (FrFT)
[12-14]
range compression
and so on.
The CCM assumes small and relatively constant range
shifts between adjacent range profiles. However, in reality,
many factors may result in random noises in the echo signals.
For instance, the target with built-in disturbance components
or the case under an extremely poor flying situation. In these
cases, the sharply fluctuated and multi-peaked range profiles
will increase the number of serious aligned errors. Addition-
ally, the aligned errors of different range profiles may be trans-
ferred and accumulated during the cross-correlation process-
ing. The ACCM uses the accumulation concept to enhance
the stable and strong frequency components in the profile of
each echo signal and to suppress the fast varying disturbances,
which reduces the aligned error to some extent. Nevertheless,
the common problem is still not solved, because the complex
envelopes of the original range profiles may introduce more
than one peak values on the cross-correlation curves and then
import aligned errors especially in hostile environments. In
addition, the phase error caused by the simplex accumulation
manner should not be ignored. To reduce the aligned errors
from the perspective of signal form optimization, Ref. [14]
proposed a cross-correlation method based on the FrFT range
compression (FrCCM). This method uses the FrFT property to