Mimo-Sar for Real-Time Automotive Imaging and Multipath Mitigation

This paper tackles two open problems concerning automotive Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR): whether it is possible to develop a fast and efficient focusing routine and assess the effect of multipath on MIMO-SAR images. First, we present a processing technique that enables real-time imaging of the scene under observation. The idea is that the SAR image is already present in the Range-Angle-Velocity (RAV) data cube and must be extracted with a simple 3D interpolation. Unlike standard Doppler beam sharpening techniques, this processor is accurate since it handles range migration and phase curvature. For what concerns the multipath, instead, we introduce a simple yet effective approach to mitigate this issue, which significantly improves the robustness of SAR systems concerning multipath. To showcase the capabilities and potential of our proposed method, we conducted a comprehensive set of experiments utilizing simulated data. The results were not only able to demonstrate the enhancement of robustness of the SAR system in dealing with multipath but also highlighted the ability of our approach to deliver highly accurate and high-quality real-time imaging of the scene being surveyed.