Multipass SAR Processing for Urbanized Areas Imaging and Deformation Monitoring at Small and Large Scales

A new processing chain that allows monitoring ground deformations, both at small scales and large scales, is discussed. Core of the chain is the spatial differencing (SD) algorithm that allows very quick estimation of the small scale (low resolution) mean deformations velocity and residual topography by means of the use of spatial differences between adjacent and non-adjacent pixels. Small scale deformation time series is then generated by using the Enhanced spatial differences (ESD) that permits separating atmospheric phase contribution, linear and non-linear deformation velocity and residual topography. Deformations and target localization at large scales (full resolution) is provided by the application of a multi-dimensional (4D) imaging (differential-tomography) that exploits the complex nature of the received signal to focus the data in the space-time domain.