Enhanced SAR Image Processing Using A Heterogeneous Multiprocessor

Abstract: Synthetic antenna aperture (SAR) is a pulses focusing airborne radar which can achieve high resolution radar image. A number of image process algorithms have been developed for this kind of radar, but the calculation burden is still heavy. So the image processing of SAR is normally performed “off-line”. The Fast Factorized Back Projection (FFBP) algorithm is considered as a computationally efficient algorithm for image formation in SAR, and several applications have been implemented which try to make the process “on-line”. CELL Broadband Engine is one of the newest multi-core-processor jointly developed by Sony, Toshiba and IBM. CELL is good at parallel computation and floating point numbers, which all fit the demands of SAR image formation. This thesis is going to implement FFBP algorithm on CELL Broadband Engine, and compare the results with pre-projects. In this project, we try to make it possible to perform SAR image formation in real-time.