Parameter Estimation of 2D Multi-Component Polynomial Phase Signals: An Application to SAR Imaging of Moving Targets

Polynomial-phase signals (PPS) appear in a variety of applications and several algorithms are available to estimate their parameters in the presence of noise. Among the available tools, the product high order ambiguity function (PHAF) has the merit of performing well in the presence of a superposition of PPS's. In this work, we generalize the PHAF to handle two-dimensional PPS's. Then we show an example of application motivating such an extension: the high resolution imaging of moving targets from synthetic aperture radars (SAR). Using the 2D-PHAF, we will propose an algorithm that compensates jointly for the range cell migration and the phase modulation induced by the relative radar-target motion in order to produce a focused image of the moving target. Numerical results illustrate the advantages of the proposed method when compared to existing auto-focusing algorithms.