Decomposition of 2D Process into Range and Azimuth 1D Processes: Range-Doppler Algorithm (RD Algorithm)

SAR imaging processing extracts the 2D distribution of scattering coefficients from echo data, which is fundamentally a 2D correlation process. While the most direct approach involves 2D matched filtering, its computational intensity combined with SAR's inherently high data rate makes real-time processing challenging. The standard solution decomposes the 2D process into separate range and azimuth 1D processing chains using the Range-Doppler Algorithm (RD Algorithm), which significantly reduces computational complexity through sequential filtering operations in frequency domains.