Rate allocation for spotlight SAR phase history data compression

Complex phase history data in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) systems requir e extensive processing before useful images can be obtained. In spotlight m ode SAR systems, useful images can be obtained by applying aperture weighti ng and inverse Fourier transform operations to SAR phase history data. In this paper, we are concerned with the compression of the complex phase h istory data obtained by a spotlight SAR system, We exploit knowledge of the aperture weighting function along with Fourier transform processing to att ach a "gain" factor to each complex phase history data sample, This gain fa ctor is then used to efficiently allocate bits to the phase history data du ring quantization. Performance evaluations are presented for this compressi on system relative to other existing SAR phase history data compression sys tems.