High-Resolution Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Imaging in scattering media

Abstract: The goal of synthetic aperture imaging is to estimate the reflectivity of a remote region of interest by processing data gathered with a moving sensor which emits periodically a signal and records the backscattered wave. We introduce and analyze a high-resolution interferometric method for synthetic aperture imaging through an unknown scattering medium which distorts the wave. The method builds on the coherent interferometric (CINT) approach which uses empirical cross-correlations of the measurements to mitigate the distortion, at the expense of a loss of resolution of the image. The new method shows that, while mitigating the wave distortion, it is possible to obtain a robust and sharp estimate of the modulus of the Fourier transform of the reflectivity function. A high-resolution image can then be obtained by a phase retrieval algorithm.