High precision measurement on the absolute localization accuracy of TerraSAR-X

Author

Balss, Ulrich ; Cong, Xiao Ying ; Brcic, Ramon ; Rexer, Moritz ; Minet, Christian ; Breit, Helko ; Eineder, Michael ; Fritz, Thomas

Author_Institution

Remote Sensing Technol. Inst. (IMF), German Aerosp. Center (DLR), Wessling, Germany

fYear

2012

fDate

22-27 July 2012

Firstpage

1625

Lastpage

1628

Abstract

The German SAR (synthetic aperture radar) satellites TerraSAR-X (TSX-1) and TanDEM-X (TDX-1), launched in June 2007 and June 2010 respectively, provide an unprecedented geometric accuracy. Previous studies showed an absolute pixel localization for both sensors at the centimeter level [4] [5] [6]. However, recent measurements show that in range, under extraordinary good conditions, a location accuracy of even a few millimeters seems to be attainable. While on a long-term scale, we observed a slow variation of subsequent measurements; on a short-term scale, they coincided to within a few millimeters. The measurement series will be continued. The cause of the long-term variation is the subject of current investigation.

Keywords

artificial satellites; synthetic aperture radar; German SAR; TanDEM-X; TerraSAR-X; absolute localization accuracy; geometric accuracy; high precision measurement; long-term scale; long-term variation; short-term scale; subsequent measurements; synthetic aperture radar satellites; Accuracy; Atmospheric measurements; Delay; Extraterrestrial measurements; Radar measurements; Synthetic aperture radar; Synthetic aperture radar; TerraSAR-X; absolute localization accuracy; imaging geodesy;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS), 2012 IEEE International

Conference_Location

Munich

ISSN

2153-6996

Print_ISBN

978-1-4673-1160-1

Electronic_ISBN

2153-6996

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IGARSS.2012.6351217

Filename

6351217