Efficient spotlight SAR raw signal simulation of extended scenes

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) raw signal simulation is a powerful tool for designing new sensors, testing processing algorithms, planning missions, and devising inversion algorithms. In this paper, a spotlight SAR raw signal simulator for distributed targets is presented. The proposed procedure is based on a Fourier domain analysis: a proper analytical reformulation of the spotlight SAR raw signal expression is presented. It is shown that this reformulation allows us to design a very efficient simulation scheme that employs last Fourier transform codes. Accordingly, the computational load is dramatically reduced with respect to a time-domain simulation and this, for the first time, makes spotlight simulation of extended scenes feasible. Index Terms--Radar, scattering, simulation, spotlight synthetic aperture radar (SAR). synthetic aperture radar (SAR).