An analytic nonlinear approach to sidelobe reduction

We propose an analytic technique for reducing sidelobe artifacts in synthet ic aperture radar data. The technique, called leakage energy minimization ( LEM), uses a spatially varying aperture function, the coefficients of which satisfy a simple optimality condition. The integrated sidelobe energy (or leakage energy) characterizing a given aperture weighting function is used as a metric for determining the likelihood of an aperture weighting. When a pplied to synthetic aperture radar data, the technique can effectively redu ce sidelobe Levels with negligible loss of resolution, The algorithm is com putationally efficient, and its application requires no restrictions on the data sampling rate.