Parallel Implementation of Time-Domain Airborne SAR Focusing: a Quantitative Assessment of the Computing Performance

In this work we present different strategies for implementing the Time-Domain (TD) focusing procedure in airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imaging, with the aim of providing a quantitative assessment of their computing performance. Specifically, two approaches, pixel-wise and matrix-wise, are considered, and their parallel implementation is also discussed.The proposed analysis is tailored to the airborne SAR infrastructure available at the Institute for Electromagnetic Sensing of the Environment (IREA) of the National Research Council (CNR) in Naples, Italy, which includes a SAR sensor and an Information Technology (IT) platform for the data storage and processing.The presented results demonstrate that the pixel-wise strategy significantly outperforms the matrix-wise approach in terms of processing time. Moreover, parallel processing, underscoring the potential of divide-and-conquer strategies, further accelerates computation. This is crucial for timely responses when the airborne SAR infrastructure is involved in monitoring activities relevant to emergency scenarios.