A Modified Fast

F Factorized Back Prrojection

Algorithm foor the Spotlight SAR Im
maging
Shaoshan Zuo, Guangcai Sun, Menggdao Xing

Wenshenng Chang

National Key Lab of Radar Signal Proocessing

Xidian University
Xian , P. R. China
zuoshaoshan@126.com

Fourteenth Reesearch Institute

China Electronics Technology Group
Nanjing, P.
P R. China

AbstractIn the Fast Factorized Back Proojection Algorithm

[1], the 2D interpolation in the image domaain is an essential
procedure to obtain a fine resolution image which is achieved
point by point. The computational burden is intensive [2]. This
paper presents a modified FFBPA for the spotllight SAR imaging.
In this algorithm, the coarse sub-images obtained
o
by back
projecting the sub-aperture signals to the imaaging grids in local
polar coordinates are corrected by the sh
hift in the range
dimension and the rotation in the angle dimen
nsion. And then the
sub-images are fused to synthesize the high resolution image. The
method is convenient and efficient in practical operation.

II THE MODIFIED FAST FAC

CTORIZED BACK PROJECTION
ALGO
ORITHM
Figure 1 shows the sub-apperture imaging geometry. The
instantaneous range between thhe radar and the point P is

(1)
L
L
X 
2
2
Assume the received signnal after range compression is
p
of back-projection
s (U, X ) , the sub-aperture partitioning
integral can be expressed as follows


Index TermsSAR, spotlight, Fast Factorizeed Back Projection

Algorithm (FFBPA), Geometric correcction, Individual
interpolation.

L /2

I (rp , Rp ) 

I. INTRODUCTION

s(U  %t p , X ) exp[ j

L /2

Compared with the Back Projection Algoorithm (BPA), the

interpolation load of the Fast Factorized Back Projection
Algorithm (FFBPA) is released. How
wever, the 2D
interpolation in the image domain is essentiial for the FFBPA
and the intensive computational burden lim
mits its application
in practice. This paper presents the geometricc correction based
FFBPA for the spotlight SAR imaging. In thhis algorithm, the
sub-image registration is accomplished by
b the geometric
correction method that the sub-image projection
p
in the
different coordinate systems and sub-im
mage fusion are
fulfilled by the shift in the range dimension and
a the rotation in
the angle dimension. Thus the method avoiids the individual
interpolation. Simulation and real data reesults validate its
imaging performance.

4Q
R(X , rp , Rp )]dX (2)
M

Apply the back-projection integral to all the sub-aperture

data, we get a series of sub--images. In order to fuse them
conveniently, the sub-images are
a corrected in range dimension
and angle dimension.
Figure 2 shows the local poolar coordinates (LPC1, the thin
solid line part and LPC2, thhe dotted line part) before the
fusion of two adjacent subb-images and the local polar
coordinates (LPC, the thick solid
s
line part) after the fusion.
Assume the coordinates of thhe point P is (r1 ,R1 ) in LPC1
and (r, R) in LPC.

Fig.2. The local polar coordinates beefore and after the sub-images fusion.
(The thin solid line part represents LPC
C1, the dotted line part represents LPC2
and the thick soolid part is LPC.)

Fig.1. Sub-aperture imaging geometry in spootlight mode

c
978-1-4673-7297-8/15/$31.00 2015
IEEE

R X , rp , Rp  X 2  rp2  2Xrp sin(Rp )

756

The difference in range dimension between LPC1 and

LPC can be expressed
%r(R1 )  r1  r

 sin(R1 )%L 
x sin(R1 )%L 

cos(R1 )2
2r1
cos(R1 )2
2RS

%L2

(3)

%L2

In angle dimension, the difference is

%R(r )  R1  R

%L

 arctan
R [1  tan(R) tan(R )]
p
1
%L
x arctan(
)
r

range dimension and rotation in angle dimension can be

achieved by FFT, the total computation load is

1
3N 2
C  N 3  (5log2 N  )N 2 log2 n 
(log2 n)2 .
2
2
Because of the approximate operation in sub-image
correction (see Eqn. (3) and Eqn. (4)), the errors are inevitable
which degrade the quality of the SAR image. So the errors in
range and angle should be limited, i.e. the error of %r (R1 )
ought to be less than

(4)

Sr

I 2 are fused to the sub-image I located in LPC. Note that it is

necessary to up-sample the sub-images in the angle dimension.
The sub-image correction and fusion can be described as Fig
3.
According to the discussion above, we can obtain the flow
chart of the modified FFBPA, as shown in Fig. 4.

; the error of %R(r ) ought to be less

SR

. Sr and SR are the range resolution and angle

4
resolution of the final image individually. Thus we can also
get the size of the image area in the spotlight mode.

than

We can see that %r (R1 ) is the function of R1 and %R(r )

only varies with r . This makes it possible to deal with the
sub-image located in LPC1 i.e. I 1 by lines and rows instead
of interpolation point by point. The sub-image located in
LPC2 i.e. I 2 can be processed in the same way. Then I 1 and

Wr b

64Sa2 Sr RS
M 2RS  32Sa2 Sr

Wa b 4Sa

(5)

RS
M

Where Wr is the width of the image area, and Wa is its

length. Sa is the azimuth resolution and Sa  4RS SR .

I2

I1

Fig.4. The flow chart of the modified FFBPA

TABLE I: PARAMETERS OF THE SIMULATION

I
Fig.3. Sub-image correction and fusion

III. COMPUTATION LOAD AND ERRORS

Assume the size of the raw data after range compression is

N qN (range dimensionangle dimension), and the whole

aperture is divided into n sub-apertures. For the shift in

wave length

0.0313m

pulse width

10s

bandwidth

500MHz

slant range

13.5km

velocity

100m/s

working time

7.5s

2015 IEEE 5th Asia-Pacific Conference on Synthetic Aperture Radar(APSAR)

757

IV. RESULTS
A. Simulation Result
wn in Table I.
The parameters of the simulation are show
Figure 5 describes the distribution of thee points located in
the image area.

(
(b)

Fig.5. The distribution of the pointts

(
(c)
Fig.7. Performance evaluation of the algorithm. (a) The contour of IRF; (b)
the envelope of IRF in rang dimensioon; (c) the envelope of IRF in azimuth
dimeension.

The Peak Side Lobe Ratiio (PSLR) and Integrated Side

Lobe Ratio (ISLR) of the IRF are
a shown in Table II.
TABLE II: PSLR
R AND ISLR (dB)

Fig.6. Final image

Figure 6 is the final image. The point in the black circle is

selected to evaluate the quality of the im
mage. Its impulse
response function (IRF) is shown in Fig 7.

Range dimensiion

Azimuth dimension

PSLR

-13.24

-13.19

ISLR

-10.22

-9.72

B. Real Data Result

Radar data were acquired with an airborne SAR system
operated in the X band with a resolution of 0.25m 0.2m
(range azimuth). The distannce from the scene center to the
flying track is 13.5km. The final image has 6144 4096
pixels at 0.18m 0.16m spaccing. Fig 8 shows the real data
result.
Above all, we can conclude that the performance of the
algorithm satisfies the requirem
ment of SAR imaging.
ACKNOWLLEDGMENT
This work was supported by
b the National Natural Science
Foundation of China under graant 61301292, and the National
Natural Science Foundation off China under grant 61222108.

(a)

758

2015 IEEE 5th Asia-Pacific Conference on Synthetic Aperture Radar(APSAR)

Fig.8. Real data result

REFERENCES

[1] Ulander L M H, Hellsten H, annd Stenstrom G,

Synthetic-aperture radar processing usinng fast factorized
back-projection. IEEE Transactions on Aeerospace Electronic
System, vol. 39, NO. 3, pp. 760-776, 2003.
[2] Yang Ze-min, Sun Guang-cai, Wu Yu-feng, et al., A new fast
back projection algorithm based on polar format algorithm.
Journal of Electronics & Information Technollogy, vol. 36, NO. 3,
pp. 537-544, 2014.

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