Photonics-Assisted Vivid False Target Imaging Deceptive Jamming Signal Generator Against SAR

The operating frequency and instantaneous bandwidth of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) deceptive jamming systems based on digital radio frequency memory (DRFM) is limited and may not be effective when encountering frequency agile or wide-bandwidth radar systems. A vivid false target imaging deceptive jamming signal generator against SAR based on microwave photonics is proposed to solve this limitation. The proposed deceptive jamming method eliminates the reliance on DRFM components for radar jamming systems against SAR. The operational frequency range and the instantaneous bandwidth are extended and high-fidelity false target images can be generated. A proof-of-concept experiment is implemented. SAR jamming waveforms in X and Ku bands are successfully generated. Vivid ship-shaped false targets are constructed in the SAR imaging results. The structural similarity (SSIM) and the peak signal-to-noise radio (PSNR) of generated false target SAR images are 0.7841 and 28.32 dB in the X band, and 0.8500 and 29.58 dB in the Ku band. A quantitative analysis is conducted to evaluate the impact of frequency drifts in the range and azimuth domains on the degradation of false target image quality. The effective deceptive region is also discussed. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed jamming structure against SAR possesses the capability of vivid SAR false target image generation similar to that of electronic jamming systems while also possessing the large bandwidth advantages of microwave photonic systems.