Real-time Range Doppler Algorithm for Synthetic Aperture Sonar Based on Graphic Processing Unit

A Range Doppler imaging Algorithm (RDA) based on Graphic Processing Unit (GPU) is proposed, which is a new method of real-time imaging for Synthetic Aperture Sonar (SAS). The range compression, phase compensation and azimuth compression are implemented in parallel based on GPU device, which increases greatly the efficiency of Range Doppler Algorithm (RDA). The simulation and experimental results show that the GPU- based implementation is faster (up to 22 times) than the CPU-based implementation, which makes it suitable for real-time SAS imaging.