TIMIE-FREQUENCY TRANSFORM VS.
FOURIER TFUNSIFORM FOR RADAR IMAGING
Victor C. Chen
Naval Research Laboratory, Washington D .C. 203 75
Shie Qian
DSP Group, National Instruments, Austin, TX 78730
Abstract
Conventional radar imaging systems use the
Fourier transform for reconstruction of radar images,
To use the Fourier transform adequafely, some
restrictions must be applied. Due to target's motion
and maneuvaring, the reconstructed iimage by using
Fourier transform becomes smeared. There:fore, some
sophisticated motion compensation procedures must
be applied to produce clear image. However, the
restrictions of Fourier transform can be lifted if a
high resolution time-frequency transform can be used
to retrieve the Doppler information. By relplacing the
conventional Fourier transform with the ,joint time-
frequency transform, a 2-D range-Dfoppler Fourier
frame becomes a 3-D time-range-Doppler cube.
With sampling in time, a sequence of clear 2-D
range-Doppler images can be simply reconstructed
without using sophisticated motion compensation.
Introduction
Radar image presents a spatial diistribution
of an object's reflectivity, and it is mapped onto a
range and cross-range plane. Both the synthetic
aperture radar (SAR) and the inverse synthetic
aperture radar (ISAR) are imaging radar. SAR refers
to the situation where the radar is moving and the
object is stationary, while ISAR refers to a
geometrically inverse way where ithe object is
moving and the radar is stationary. In BAR, the
cross-range resolution is obtained by using Doppler
spectrum.
The conventional approach to retrieve
Doppler spectrum is the Fourier transform. To use
the Fourier transform adequately, some restrictions
must be applied: the Doppler frequency contents of
the data should not change within the imaging time
duration. If the Doppler contents do ch,ange with
time, the Doppler spectrum by using the Fourier
transform becomes smeared and, thus, the cross-
range resolution will be degraded. However, the
restrictions can be lifted if the Doppler information
can be retrieved with a method other than Fourier
transform, such as a time-frequency transform, which
do not require stationary Doppler spectrum.
Due to target motion, the Doppler frequency
shift of a scatterer located at (x,,y,)can be
approximately expressed as [I]
where f is the carrier frequency of the trasmitted
signal, c is the velocity of the wave propagation,
v R is the radial velocity of the scatterer, and is
the rotation rate of the scatterer about its rotation
center. Froni Eq.(l) we can see that the Doppler
frequency shift is also related to the geometric
location of the scatterer ( x o , y o ) . Thus, another
scatterer at a drifferent geometric location in the target
may have a different Doppler frequency shift. From
Eq.( 1) we also notice that the Doppler frequency shift
is time-varying, even if the rotation rate is a
constant.
Based on the returned signal from a single
point scatterer, the returned signal fii-om the object
can be represeinted as the integration of the returned
signals from all scatterers in the object:
where r ( x , y ) is the radar range of a scatterer at
( x , y ) . The objective of radar imaging system is to
construct the reflectivity finction of the object
p(x,y) from the frequency signature S(f). This
can be done by simply taking inverse Fourier
transform of the phase compensated frequency
signature S ( f >exp Ij4r~fR / C} . The process of
estimating the object range R, and removing the
extraneous phase term exp{-j47cfRo / c } is called
gross motion compensation. Then, the inverse
Fourier transfcirm can be applied to construct the
reflective density function of the object.

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Fig. 1 Illustration of a stepped-frequency
inverse synthetic radar imaging of a moving object.
Fig.1 shows a block diagram of a radar
imaging system using stepped-frequency waveform
to illustrate the process of the synthetic radar
imaging. The stepped-frequency radar transmits a
sequence of A' bursts. Each burst consists of M
narrow-band pulses. Within each burst the center
frequency of each succesive pulse f,,, is increased by
a constant frequency step A f . The total bandwidth
of the burst, i.e., M times the frequency
step Af ,determines the radar range resolution. The
total number of bursts, N , determines the Doppler
or cross-range resolution. To form a radar image,
after collecting the returned signals, the M -by-
Ncomplex data is organized into a two-
diemensional array, which represents the unprocessed
spatial frequency signature of the object, Scf) .
The radar processor uses the frequency
signatures as the raw data to do range processing and
Doppler processing. Range processing functions as a
matched filter for performing pulse compression.
For the stepped-frequency signals, the range
processing performs M -point inverse discrete
Fourier transform (IDFT) for each of the A' received
frequency signatures. Therefore, N range profiles
each containing M range cells can be obtained. By
taking discrete Fourier transform (DFT) at each range
cell, a N -point Doppler spectrum can be generated.
Combining the M Doppler spectra at k f range
cells, the -by- N radar image is formed.
':l"f".
=
vfs
2 ftsinQt/c
RPDAR IMAGE
a
Fourier Processing and
Motion Compensation
very
Motion compensation is
important step to achieve a
cutplt
clear radar image. In contrast
with SAR, ISAR utilizes object's
pitch, roll and yaw motions and
measures the Doppler spectrum to
generate images of the object.
Doppler processing using Fourier
transforms is adequate only in the
case that the scatterers remain in
range cells and that their Doppler
frequency shifts are constant
N N during the entire observation time.
If the scatterers drift out of range
cells or their Doppler frequency
shifts are time-varying, then the
constructed image becomes
blurred. Motion compensation
procedures attempt to keep each scatterer within its
range cell and to make constant Doppler frequency
shift for each of them. Thus, the Fourier transform
can be properly applied to construct a clear image of
the object.
When target is significantly maneuvering,
even sophisticated motion compensation is still not
good enough, and individual scatterers may still drift
through range cells. Thus, the Doppler spectrum
may still be time-varying, and the image may still be
blurred by using Fourier transform.
However, the restrictions of the Fourier
transform can be lifted if a high resolution time-
frequency transform is used. Thus, there is no need
to eliminate the drift through range cells and no need
to keep Doppler frequenqy shift constant for each
scatterer.
Time-Varying Doppler Spectrum
From a frequency analysis point of view, the
complex motion causes the Doppler frequency to be
time-varying. Therefore, if we can analyze the time-
varying Doppler frequency shift very well, the image
blurring caused by the time-varying Doppler
spectrum can be resolved without applying
sophisticated motion compensation. On the other
hand, since the time-varying Doppler frequency shift
can also be induced by uncompensated phase errors,
time-varying Doppler processing can also benefit in
resolving the image blurring due to these.

The time-varying spectrum can be induced
by time-varying velocity v R ( t )or rotation rate
a( t ) . Even if the rotation rate is a constant, the
rotational motion-induced Doppler frequency shift
can still be time-varying. Another factor of time-
varying Doppler spectrum may come from
uncompensated phase errors. due to the object's
Range
Fig.2 Images of aircraft from the simulated data with phase errors by using (a) Fourier transform
and (b) time-frequency transform.
irregular motion, fluctuation of the rotation rate,
inaccuracy in tracking the phase hdstoiry, and other
variations due to the system and the environment.
Because of the time-varying property of the
Doppler spectrum, an efficient waiy to resolve the
smeared Fourier spectrum and blurred radar image is
to apply a joint time-frequency transform. To
achieve superior resolution and unibiased estimation
of the instantaneous frequency spectrum, we use the
time-frequency distribution series (TFDS) to perform
time-frequency transform [ 2 ] which is an efficient
way to achieve focusing and to resolve the image
blurring problem caused by time-varying property of
Doppler spectrum.
Time-Frequency Transform far Radar
Imaging
To achieve superior resolution and unbiased
estimation of the instantaneous frequency spectrum,
the time-frequency properties of joint the-freqiuency
transform are very useful. B!y replacing the
conventional Fourier transform with a joint time-
TFTS'96 391
frequency transform, a 2-D range-Doppler Fourier
frame becomes a 3-D time-range-Doppler cube. By
sampling in time, a time sequence of 2-D range-
Doppler images can be viewed [ 3 ].
A simulated aircraft in terms of its 3-D
reflectivity density function p(x,y,z) is used to
explore the potential benefit of the time-frequency
Range
transform iri constructing radar images. The aircraft
has only a translational motion with a velocity of
120m/s along a track at 130 degree from the radar
line of sight. The radar is assumed operating at X-
band, and total 64 stepped frequencies are used in
each burst. Here, 0.82 sec observation time or 256
samples of the time history series is assumed.
Therefore, the radar image consists of 64 range-cells
and 256 Doppler frequencies.
If there is a fluctuation in the velocity
+
v(t) = v(0) 6V(t)
it can induce an equivalent radial velocity fluctuation
as well as an equivalent angular velocity fluctuation.
Even if the fluctuation causes only a maximum
velocity variation of 0.5 m / s with the above
mentioned velocity (which results in a maximum
range fluctuation of 0. lm), the uncompensated phase
error due to this fluctuation can cause the constructed
image to be blurred as shown in Fig.2(a), where
range tracking and Doppler tracking has been
applied.
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From time-varying spectrum point of view, [2] S.Qian and D.Chen,''Decomposition of Wigner-
the uncompensated phase error causes the Doppler Ville distribution and time-frequency distribution
spectrum to be time-varying. If we deal with the series", IEEE Trans. on Signal Processing, 42, (1994)
time-varying Doppler spectrum using the pp.2836-2842.
conventional Fourier transform processing, the image [3] V.C.Chen,"Radar ambiguity function, time-
becomes blurred. By replacing the Fourier transform varying matched filter, and optimum wavelet
with a joint time-frequency transform implemented correlator", Optical Engineering, 33(7), (1 994)
by the time-frequency distribution series as illustrated pp.2212-2217.
in Fig. 3 , a single image frame becomes a sequence
of temporal image frames. In other words, the joint
time-frequency transform resolves the single image
frame into a stack of its temporal frame elements.
For each temporal frame element, its range-Doppler Frequency
resolution is higher than the single Fourier frame. Domain
Signatures
Fig.2(b) shows one frame from the image sequence
constructed by the joint time-frequency transform.
We can easily see that by using the joint time-
frequency transform, the time-varying spectrum can
be represented very well and, therefore, the blurred
Fourier image is resolved into a sequence of time-
varying images, which not only has higher resolution,
but also shows the Doppler changing and range
walking from time to time.

Summary

The conventional radar imaging uses the

Fourier transform, which assumes that the contents of Fig.3 Block diagram of ISAR image reconstruction using
Doppler frequencies are not changing during imaging joint time frequency transform.
time. However, in most cases, this assumption is not
true. In many cases, the Doppler frequency shift is
actually time-varying. Therefore, by representing the
time-varying Doppler spectrum with the Fourier
spectrum, the Doppler spectrum becomes smeared.
To represent the-varying spectra, a joint
time-frequency transform is desirable. The joint
time-frequency transform can very well represent the
local time-frequency structures of the radar data. By
replacing the conventional Fourier transform with a
joint time-frequency transform, a 2-D range-Doppler
Fourier frame becomes a 3-D time-range-Doppler
cube. By sampling in t h e , a time sequence of 2-D
range-Doppler images can be viewed. Each
individual time-sampled image from the cube
provides superior resolution.

Reference

[ 11 V.C.Chen,"Reconstruction of inverse synthetic

aperture radar image using adaptive time-frequency
wavelet transform (Invited Paper)", SPIE
Proceedings on Wavelet Applications, 249 1, (1995)
pp.373-386.