A Novel Complex SAR Image Registration Method Aiming at Multi-channel GMTI

The paper proposes a novel complex SAR image registration method aiming at multi-channel GMTI. Firstly, the influence of registration error to the interferometric phase is systemically discussed, which include deducing the Cramer-Rao bound corresponding to interferometric phase’s standard deviation and utilizing the Monte Carlo simulation data to quantify the registration error. Based on that, according to the processing of two-dimensional interpolations to the input image, the database of template images and correlation coefficients are obtained. Adopting the phase correlation of complex images as the matching criterion, which is agreement with multi-channel GMTI, and finding the image contained in the template database with the maximum value of phase correlation as the registration image, then the precise registration among the multi-channel complex SAR images can be accomplished. By the experiments performed on three-channel real complex SAR images, almost all the moving targets are successfully detected based on the proposed registration method, which proves that the proposed method can provide the needed registration precision for multi-channel GMTI and confirms the effectiveness and practicality of the method.