Simulation of SAR multi-angle ship target imaging, considering multiple scattering

Ship recognition based on SAR imagery supports in maritime tracking and security applications. However, the cost and limited accessibility of real SAR data make simulation a critical alternative to address data scarcity. To generate high-fidelity SAR images of ship targets, this paper proposes a multi-angle simulation method that accounts for multiple electromagnetic scattering effects. The method combines ray tracing with physical optics to build a backward multiple-scattering model. The radar equation is introduced to model energy attenuation, while cumulative phase changes along each propagation path are precisely tracked. Scattering responses from numerous surface facets of the distributed target are coherently summed in both amplitude and phase to form the total backscattered field. Furthermore, considering the positional variation of the platform during synthetic aperture period, global phase correction is applied to local scattering responses to reconstruct the overall echo signal. The Range-Doppler algorithm is used to focus the simulated echo and produce the final SAR image. Quantitative evaluation yields an average SSIM of 0.9341 and cosine similarity of 0.8070 against RaySAR simulations, while comparison with a real SAR image at 60° azimuth achieves SSIM and cosine similarity of 0.7975 and 0.7089, validating the effectiveness of the proposed approach.