Advances in airborne SAR interferometry using the experimental SAR system of DLR

During recent years the experimental SAR (E-SAR) system of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) has continuously been operated to acquire data for different scientific applications in forestry, agriculture and glaciology. In this context, the data where mainly used to develop new scattering models in preparation of future space-borne missions posing increasing accuracy requirements especially for the processing of repeat-pass interferometric data. Also direct model-free methods like differential SAR interferometry for measuring displacements in the order of the wavelength or SAR tomography for real 3D microwave imaging of scattering volumes determined the development of advanced and very accurate motion compensation techniques. This paper first gives an overview of the updates of the E-SAR system performed during the last couple of years and then focusses on the recently developed airborne interferometric processing methods and their applications.