Statistical performance analysis for GMTI using ATI phase distribution

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging is often used to image an area using airborne platforms that generate a large aperture by virtue of the platform motion. Large apertures generate a large synthetic array providing fine cross-range resolution, and together with wide bandwidth waveforms that provide high range resolution, fine resolution images can be generated. SAR algorithms make use of coherent phase compensation from various pulses for focusing and the technique works exceedingly well for scenes containing stationary scattering centers. When moving targets are present, their images are smeared and shifted due to the motion, and to take advantage of this shift, nearby receiver plates are used to form multiple SAR images and together with along track interferometry (ATI), it generates a phase factor that can be used to detect moving target presence. This paper examines the distribution of the phase variable used in ATI for zero mean Complex Gaussian clutter/target data, and uses the results to address the target in clutter problem as a hypothesis testing problem to compute the probability of detection/false alarm as a function of target to clutter ratio and its velocity.