RADAR IMAGING TECHNIQUES

Course objectives

Knowledge and understanding: to know the fundamentals of SAR systems, SAR system design and main operating modes as well as main techniques for the focusing and autofocusing of SAR images and for the extraction of information from focused images. Applying knowledge and understanding: to know how to competently do proper choices for SAR systems design and to develop and apply techniques for the focusing/autofocusing and for the information extraction. Making judgements: to know how to integrate and use the acquired knowledge in order to choose the main system parameters and implement SAR signal processing chains comprising the cascade of many stages and to know how to critically analyze the corresponding results. The acquisition of this skill is strengthened by the activity required by the homework. Communication skills: to know how to illustrate with proper technical language the solutions chosen to solve SAR system design or SAR signal processing issues and to know how to describe and discuss results coming from specific processing techniques. The acquisition of this skill is strengthened by the final exam consisting in a talk during which the student describes the activity carried out for the homework using a PowerPoint presentation. Learning skills: to acquire the ability to complement the theoretical studies with practical applications of the studied concepts working to this aim autonomously.

Channel 1
DEBORA PASTINA Lecturers' profile

Program - Frequency - Exams

Course program
Imaging radar systems from air- and space-based platform. SAR processing (approximately 2/3 of the course - 40 hours): - basic principles for synthetic aperture radar (SAR) - principles for system design and STRIPMAP, Spotlight SAR, SCANSAR acquisition modes - focusing and auto focusing techniques - geometric distortion correction - SAR images of moving targets - principles and processing techniques for the formation of ISAR (Inverse SAR) images of moving targets Extraction of information from SAR images (approximately 1/3 of the course - 20 hours): - statistical description of speckle noise - despeckling techniques - segmentation techniques - recognition and classification of extended targets - detection of changes and multi temporal patterns - information extraction from multi-dimensional images
Prerequisites
Basic knowledge of radar techniques and systems, signal theory.
Books
“Understanding SAR images”, C.J. Oliver, S. Quegan, Artech House, 2004, I.G. Cumming, F.H. Wong “Digital processing of Synthetic Aperture Radar”, Artech House W.G. Carrara, R.S. Goodman, R.M. Majewski, “Spotlight Synthetic Aperture Radar”, Artech House Supplementary material (slides) available on Classroom
Frequency
Attendance is not mandatory but strongly recommended.
Exam mode
The final exam requests the development of an activity to be done autonomously at home (homework) that includes the development and implementation of the techniques described in the lectures from a theoretical point of view and the analysis of the obtained results. Such activities are conducted by the student using the MatLab programming tools.The examination consists in a talk discussing the implemented procedures and the obtained results using for the talk a PowerPoint presentation (slides collection) describing the work carried out.
Bibliography
SAR basics C. Oliver, S. Quegan “Understanding Synthetic Aperture Radar Images”, Artech House, Chapter 2. SAR focusing techniques RDA: I.G. Cumming, F.H. Wong “Digital processing of Synthetic Aperture Radar”, Artech House Chapter 6, Sections 6.1, 6.2, 6.3 CSA: Raney, R.K., Runge, H., Bamler, R., Wong, F.H. Precision SAR Processing Using Chirp Scaling (1994) IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 32 (4), pp. 786-799. Disponibile @ https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/298008 SAR autofocus techniques W.G. Carrara, R.S. Goodman, R.M. Majewski, “Spotlight Synthetic Aperture Radar”, Artech House Chapter 6, Sections 6.1, 6.3, 6.4 C. Oliver, S. Quegan “Understanding Synthetic Aperture Radar Images”, Artech House Chapter 3, Sections 3.1, 3.2 SAR properties C. Oliver, S. Quegan “Understanding Synthetic Aperture Radar Images”, Artech House Chapter 4,Sections 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5SAR data models C. Oliver, S. Quegan “Understanding Synthetic Aperture Radar Images”, Artech House Chapter 5,Sections 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4 SAR despeckle&segmentation C. Oliver, S. Quegan “Understanding Synthetic Aperture Radar Images”, Artech House Chapter 6, Sections 6.1,6.2, 6.3, 6.4 Chapter 7, Sections 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 7.4
Lesson mode
The organization of teaching activities includes lectures and exercises. The exercises foresee the implementation on the computer (in MatLab environment) of some of the processing techniques introduced theoretically. There are also seminars held by professionals and / or guided visits to leading companies in the sector.
  • Lesson code10606343
  • Academic year2025/2026
  • CourseTelecommunication Engineering
  • CurriculumIngegneria delle Comunicazioni (percorso valido anche ai fini del rilascio del doppio titolo italo-francese o italo-statunitense )
  • Year2nd year
  • Semester1st semester
  • SSDING-INF/03
  • CFU6