Quantitative SNR analysis for ISAR imaging using joint time-frequency analysis - Short time fourier transform

V. C. Chen recently presented an inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) imaging technique using the joint time-frequency analysis (JTFA), which has been shown having a better performance for maneuvering targets over the conventional Fourier transform method. The main reason is because the frequencies of the radar returns of the maneuvering targets are time varying and a JTFA is a technique that is suitable for such signals, in particular a JTFA may concentrate a wideband signal, such as a chirp, while it spreads noise. We quantitatively study the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in the ISAR imaging using one of the typical JTFA techniques, namely the short time Fourier transform (STFT). We show that the SNR increases in the joint time-frequency (TF) domain over the one in the time or the frequency domain alone both theoretically and numerically. This quantitatively shows the advantage of the JTFA technique for the ISAR imaging.