Abstract: In single channel SAR, the echo from a slow moving target is confused with ground clutter in time、space and frequency domains. If the information about fixed clutter in SAR image can be used to suppress the background clutter, the detection of moving target will be easy. The fractional Fourier transform is a linear operator, and will not be influenced by cross terms. The FrFT is a way to concentrate the energy of the echo from a ground moving target. In two symmetry fractional Fourier domains with two inverse rotation angles of every SAR image tangential line, the static clutter’s spectrums are same, while the moving target’s are different. The absolute value subtracting of the two signals can be expected to have superior moving target detection performance. The experiment result proveds the validity of this method.

Key words: synthetic aperture radar, moving target detection, fractional Fourier transform