SAAS-Net: Self-supervised Sparse SAR Imaging Network with Azimuth Ambiguity Suppression

Sparse Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imaging has garnered significant attention due to its ability to suppress azimuth ambiguity in under-sampled conditions, making it particularly useful for high-resolution wide-swath (HRWS) SAR systems. Traditional compressed sensing -based sparse SAR imaging algorithms are hindered by range-azimuth coupling induced by range cell migration (RCM), which results in high computational cost and limits their applicability to large-scale imaging scenarios. To address this challenge, the approximated observation-based sparse SAR imaging algorithm was developed, which decouples the range and azimuth directions, significantly reducing computational and temporal complexities to match the performance of conventional matched filtering algorithms. However, this method requires iterative processing and manual adjustment of parameters. In this paper, we propose a novel deep neural network-based sparse SAR imaging method, namely Self-supervised Azimuth Ambiguity Suppression Network (SAAS-Net). Unlike traditional iterative algorithms, SAAS-Net directly learns the parameters from data, eliminating the need for manual tuning. This approach not only improves imaging quality but also accelerates the imaging process. Additionally, SAAS-Net retains the core advantage of sparse SAR imaging—azimuth ambiguity suppression in under-sampling conditions. The method introduces self-supervision to achieve orientation ambiguity suppression without altering the hardware architecture. Simulations and real data experiments using Gaofen-3 validate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed approach.