Detection, estimation, and discrimination of frequency diverse targets in ultra-wideband synthetic aperture radar data

New ultra-wideband radar imaging systems developed for ground-penetrating and foliage-penetrating applications are a departure from traditional, higher frequency radar systems. The assumption that targets are ideal point scatterers with impulsive responses is no longer acceptable. Target responses are frequency dependent and thus spread in time. The research outlined in this dissertation addresses target detection, estimation, and discrimination issues involved with processing frequency-dependent scattering returns. Frequency dependence is exploited in prescreening algorithms, new imaging algorithms and processing techniques to estimate time-domain target responses, and discrimination techniques based upon multiuser communications approaches. We present results and discuss the contributions of these studies.