SAR raw data simulation in the frequency domain

SAR raw data simulation is important for many purposes such as testing different image formation algorithms, studying the interaction of electromagnetic waves with a scene being imaged, testing and validating of different system design parameters, etc. This simulation can be carried out in the time domain, however, it can be very time consuming. In this paper an efficient frequency domain simulation strategy is presented using inverse omega-k and chirp scaling algorithms. However, these algorithms cannot use the input reflectivity map as input as they require a coherent synthesized complex image. A strategy is also presented to realize this step of inclusion of coherent phase information to a reflectivity map.