System and method for radar imaging using distributed arrays and compressive sensing

1. A method for generating a high resolution two-dimensional (2D) radar image using a processor, comprising steps:

transmitting a radar pulse by a transmit antenna at an area of interest;

receiving echoes, corresponding to a reflection of the radar pulse in the area of interest, at a set of receive arrays, wherein each array includes a set of receive antennas that are static and distributed at different locations at a same side of the area of interest with an orientation within a predetermined angular range;

sampling the echoes for each receive array to produce distributed data for each array;

applying a compressive sensing (CS) procedure to the distributed data to generate the high resolution 2D radar image;

initializing a residual signal using the received echoes, and wherein the CS procedure includes iterative steps;

generating a two-dimensional (2D) radar image from the distributed residual signal;

applying a threshold and shrink process to the 2D radar image to produce a sparse image for a current iteration;

comparing the sparse image of the current iteration to a sparse image of a previous iteration, and if a relative error between the sparse image of the current iteration and the sparse image of the previous iteration is smaller than a predetermined threshold then the sparse image of the current iteration is the high resolution 2D radar image, and otherwise:

subtracting the signal of the current sparse image from the dense residual signal and iterating the generating, applying and comparing steps.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the sampling is uniform.

3. The method of claim 1 , the CS procedure reduces artifacts in the 2D radar image.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the CS procedure uses image domain sparsity in an iterative reconstruction method.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the CS uses image gradient domain sparsity is an iterative reconstruction method.

6. A system for generating a high resolution two-dimensional (2D) radar image, comprising:

a transmit antenna configured to transmit a radar pulse at an area of interest;

a set of receive arrays configured to receive echoes corresponding to a reflection of the radar pulse in the area of interest, wherein each array includes a set of receive antennas that are static and distributed at different locations at a same side of the area of interest with an orientation within a predetermined angular range; and

a processor configured to sample the echoes for each receive array to produce distributed data for each array and then applying a compressive sensing (CS) procedure to the distributed data to generate the high resolution 2D radar image, wherein the steps further comprises:

initializing a residual signal using the received echoes, and wherein the CS procedure includes iterative steps;

generating a two-dimensional (2D) radar image from the distributed residual signal;

applying a threshold and shrink process to the 2D radar image to produce a sparse image for a current iteration; and

comparing the sparse image of the current iteration to a sparse image of a previous iteration, and if a relative error between the sparse image of the current iteration and the sparse image of the previous iteration is smaller than a predetermined threshold then the sparse image of the current iteration is the high resolution 2D radar image, and otherwise:

subtracting the signal of the current sparse image from the dense residual signal and iterating the generating, applying and comparing steps.

7. The method of claim 6 , the CS procedure reduces artifacts in the 2D radar image.

8. The method of claim 6 , wherein the CS procedure uses image domain sparsity in an iterative reconstruction method.

9. The method of claim 6 , wherein the CS uses image gradient domain sparsity is an iterative reconstruction method.