Multi-core DSP based parallel architecture for FMCW SAR real-time imaging

Abstract

This paper presents an efficient parallel processing architecture using multi-core Digital Signal Processor (DSP) to improve the capability of real-time imaging for Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave Synthetic Aperture Radar (FMCW SAR). With the application of the proposed processing architecture, the imaging algorithm is modularized, and each module is efficiently realized by the proposed processing architecture. In each module, the data processing of different cores is executed in parallel, also the data transmission and data processing of each core are synchronously carried out, so that the processing time for SAR imaging is reduced significantly. Specifically, the time of corner turning operation, which is very time-consuming, is ignored under computationally intensive case. The proposed parallel architecture is applied to a compact Ku-band FMCW SAR prototype to achieve real-time imageries with 34 cm × 51 cm (range × azimuth) resolution.