Joint monostatic and bistatic STAP for improved SAR-GMTI capabilities

This paper proposes a novel simultaneous monostatic and bistatic ground moving target indication (GMTI) mode for improved target detection and imaging capability. The mode uses an airborne multichannel radar system and a stationary transmitter. Both systems transmit simultaneously on adjacent frequency bands, and the airborne multichannel system receives both its monostatic echoes and the bistatic returns. Geometrical diversity between the monostatic and bistatic measurements enhances moving target detection capabilities. Moreover, for movers detected in both data sets, an estimation of the target velocity vector (i.e., velocity and direction of motion) can be performed. By simply extracting a single-channel data set, this also allows correct focusing of moving targets both in monostatic and bistatic data sets, if synthetic aperture radar GMTI capability is required. Consequently, situational awareness over the observed area is greatly improved. The effectiveness of the proposed technique is analyzed both from a theoretical point of view and by means of an ad hoc experiment conducted by the Fraunhofer Institute for High Frequency Physics and Radar Techniques (FHR) in fall 2013.