Topography-dependent motion compensation for repeat-pass interferometric SAR systems

Author

Prats, Pau ; Reigber, Andreas ; Mallorqui, Jordi J.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Signal Theor. & Commun., Univ. Politecnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain

Volume

2

Issue

2

fYear

2005

fDate

4/1/2005 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

206

Lastpage

210

Abstract

This letter presents a new motion compensation algorithm to process airborne interferometric repeat-pass synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data. It accommodates topography variations during SAR data processing, using an external digital elevation model. The proposed approach avoids phase artifacts, azimuth coregistration errors, and impulse response degradation, which usually appear due to the assumption of a constant reference height during motion compensation. It accurately modifies phase history of all targets before azimuth compression, resulting in an enhanced image quality. Airborne L-band repeat-pass interferometric data of the German Aerospace Center experimental airborne SAR (E-SAR) is used to validate the algorithm.

Keywords

geophysical signal processing; image enhancement; motion compensation; radar imaging; radiowave interferometry; remote sensing by radar; synthetic aperture radar; topography (Earth); German Aerospace Center E-SAR; SAR data processing; airborne L-band repeat-pass interferometric data; airborne SAR; azimuth compression; azimuth coregistration errors; external digital elevation model; image enhancement; image registration; impulse response degradation; interferometry; motion compensation; phase artifacts; repeat-pass interferometric SAR systems; synthetic aperture radar; topography; Azimuth; Data processing; Degradation; Digital elevation models; History; Image coding; Image quality; Motion compensation; Surfaces; Synthetic aperture radar; Calibration; image registration; interferometry; motion compensation; repeat-pass interferometry; synthetic aperture radar (SAR);

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1545-598X

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LGRS.2005.846005

Filename

1420306