Baseline Estimation in Distributed Spaceborne Interferometry SAR Systems

Distributed spaceborne interferometry SAR (DS-InSAR) is the synthesis of distributed SAR including bi- and multi-static SAR techniques and interferometry techniques, which has addressed some of the limitations in conventional InSAR and subsequently has opened many new remote sensing applications. Compared to conventional InSAR, DS-InSAR has the technical challenge of baseline estimation, because the baseline between the transmitter and receiver must be known precisely during data recording. As such, this paper concentrates on the baseline estimation for DS-InSAR systems. The spatial baseline of DS-InSAR is described in many aspects, and an equation to determine the optimal spatial baseline is derived. Moreover, a high precision ranging technique is proposed to resolve the baseline estimation for high resolution spaceborne DS-InSAR systems.