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Synthetic wideband signals can obtain a wide spectrum and thus achieve a high range resolution by synthesizing separately emitted signals. A synthetic wideband range profiling method for moving targets based on phase‐derived velocity measurement is proposed. Highly accurate velocity measurement results are obtained by analysing the echo phase information of a moving target, and the accuracy of the velocity estimation results can meet the requirement of the velocity compensation in the synthetic wideband range profiling process. After analysis of the spectrum envelope and the phase of a moving target, a method for synthesizing wideband signals in the frequency domain, thus obtaining a high‐resolution range profile, is developed. The constraint conditions for the motion compensation and synthesis process are analysed and discussed by simulation, and the effectiveness of the proposed method is verified under various circumstances.

In this article, we propose a phase-derived velocity measurement (PDVM) method for high-speed spatial targets based on the stepped-frequency chirp signal (SFCS). This method is capable of accurately measuring the velocity of high-speed targets and yields root-mean-squared error values at the level of centimeters per second; therefore, it has great potential for measuring the micromotion of targets and is of significant importance for target recognition. The traditional phase-derived measurement method is not applicable for high-speed targets. The main challenge that we have solved is how to extract the echo phase from the high-resolution range profile, which is corrupted by range migration, intrapulse motion, and range straddling under high-speed target conditions. To guide the implementation of the proposed method in radar systems, constraint conditions for the compensation accuracy are thoroughly derived and systematically justified under different radar parameter settings. The simulation results are presented to validate the high accuracy of the method under various circumstances. In addition, the small-amplitude micromotion measurement capability of the proposed method is verified, and reconstruction of the target micromotion trajectory is demonstrated.

This paper proposes a phase-derived velocity measurement (PDVM) method for high-speed targets based on wideband direct sampling linear frequency modulated radar. First, a high-speed target echo model considering intrapulse Doppler modulation is developed. Then, a PDVM model considering acceleration is established. The key to realizing PDVM is resolving phase ambiguity. Under low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) conditions, a joint processing method combining acceleration information and multiframe data to solve phase ambiguity is proposed, which can significantly reduce the SNR requirement for PDVM. In this paper, the small-amplitude micromotion measurement capability of the proposed method is verified by simulation. Moreover, the measured data of a Ku-band ground-based radar are used to verify the applicability of the PDVM method under low SNR conditions and its feasibility to be applied to complex multi-scattering point targets. Both the simulation and experimental results show that the proposed method is suitable for high-speed targets with radial motion, including acceleration and jerk, and that the PDVM precision can reach the order of magnitude of centimeters per second or millimeters per second.

A novel high-accuracy phase-derived velocity measurement (PDVM) method for fast-moving space targets is presented in this letter. First, a wideband linear frequency-modulated signal model that considers the effect of radial acceleration was developed. To obtain the unambiguous phase difference between two adjacent echo pulses, coarse velocity and acceleration measurements derived from range profile cross correlation were used to resolve the phase ambiguity. Then, the derived accurate and unambiguous phase difference and the phase error induced by the discrete Fourier transform were analyzed. The PDVM technique was applied after the phase error was compensated for, and all required parameters were calculated. Under low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) conditions, a correction for the phase unwrapping error was developed. The simulation results showed that the proposed PDVM technique was highly accurate. The root-mean-square error of the PDVM results was less than 0.025 m/s when the SNR was greater than 15 dB.

Micromotion features of a target contain unique structural information and motion information about the target, which can be used as an important basis for target recognition. One of the technical bottlenecks for micromotion feature extraction is achieving a fine characterization of the target motion state. With the high-precision range and velocity measurement, this paper uses the phase-derived method to reconstruct the motion state of the target and realize accurate translational compensation for the target. At the same time, the high range resolution of wideband radar is used to effectively extract target scattering points with micromotion from the perspective of the one-dimensional high range resolution profile and the two-dimensional inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) image. On this basis, reliable micromotion feature extraction can be achieved by using the slow variability of the target motion and eliminating the translational or rotational information of the target. The performance of the high-precision range and velocity measurement and the feasibility of the micromotion feature extraction based on phase-derived range and velocity measurement are verified by simulation results. Then, the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is further verified by carrying out a steel ball ejection experiment and a civil aviation aircraft experiment.

The target micro-motion features contain unique structural information and motion information, which can be utilized as an important basis for target recognition. At present, the main constraints of micro-motion feature extraction for high-speed targets include that the translational compensation is inaccurate, the scattering points are difficult to distinguish, the micro-motion amplitude is small, the data rate is not high enough, and so forth. The phase-derived velocity measurement (PDVM) method based on wideband radar has phase-magnitude velocity measurement precision, which can accurately reconstruct the target motion while ensuring high data rate, and meet the micro-motion measurement requirements of high-speed targets. In this paper, a PDVM method for high-speed targets based on wideband direct sampling LFM radar is proposed. The high-precision velocity measurement performance and micro-motion measurement capability of the proposed method are verified by simulation.

The existing methods for motion compensation in inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) imaging are generally limited to the low-order target motion model, and require iterative optimization with limited velocity estimate precision and heavy computational burdens. This paper proposes a high-precision method of phase-derived velocity measurement (PDVM) and applies it to motion compensation of ISAR imaging. The method applies PDVM based on range profiles cross correlation to the translational velocity estimation of targets, and converts the velocity measurement results to the corresponding range increment. The equivalent phase-derived range measurement precision can reach the order of magnitude of millimeter (mm) or even sub-mm, which can satisfy the precision requirements of both envelope alignment and phase adjustment. The key to realizing PDVM is resolving phase ambiguity. The traditional method for resolving ambiguity has very high requirements for the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). This work resolves ambiguity by combining multiframe data, i.e., by resolving ambiguity of multiframe data simultaneously instead of resolving ambiguity of single-frame data independently and correcting the above ambiguity-resolving results using a minimum-entropy method. Therefore, phase ambiguity can be correctly resolved under a relatively low SNR. Experimental results of an ISAR imaging of an airplane show that the method proposed in this paper can obtain high-quality ISAR imagery, and can efficiently realize robust imaging under the conditions of low SNR.

A novel ISAR (inverse synthetic aperture radar) motion compensation approach in conjunction with the phase-derived velocity measurement (PDVM) technique to extract micro-motion feature is presented in this paper. In order to obtain high quality ISAR image, the accurate velocity information provided by PDVM is utilized for target motion compensation. By analyzing proper amount of adjacent Doppler cells around the prominent scatterer in the ISAR image, the impact of other scatterers is effectively reduced for micro-motion extraction. Experiments based on radar measured data are performed to show the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Development of radar technology needs to address the two-dimensional high resolution of range and velocity simultaneously for high-speed targets. Taking advantage of the superior coherent performance of synthetic wideband pulse Doppler radar, this paper elaborates the principles of phase-derived range and velocity measurements. Moreover, this paper explores the key technologies of unwrapping phase ambiguity, and discusses the phase unwrapping strategy at a low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). The proposed method can be applied to the conditions of low SNR and has comparatively strong practicality in engineering. Both the ejection ball and civil aircraft experiments have validated the correctness and feasibility of the proposed method. In particular, the experimental results reveal that the accuracy of phase-derived range and velocity measurement has reached a level of submillimeter or millimeter and centimeter/second or submillimeter/second, respectively.