DOA Angle Estimation Methods for Ship Geolocation using DLR’s Multichannel DBFSAR System

Direction of arrival (DOA) angle estimation is essential for projecting the airborne radar-based target detections on ground. Most state-of-the art DOA angle estimation methods assume one detection per target. These methods cannot be applied one-to-one on extended targets like ships because individual ships in high resolution data are generally composed of several distinct radar detections. Therefore, in this paper different methods for estimating the single representative DOA angle for extended targets are presented. The most suitable method is then selected for generating the geocoded results of real targets present in real multichannel airborne radar data acquired using DLR’s DBFSAR airborne radar sensor.