The TOPSAR interferometric radar topographic mapping instrument

Author

Zebker, Howard A. ; Madsen, SØren N. ; Martin, Jan ; Wheeler, Kevin B. ; Miller, Timothy ; Lou, Yunling ; Alberti, Giovanni ; Vetrella, Sergio ; Cucci, Alessandro

Author_Institution

Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Technol., Pasadena, CA, USA

Volume

30

Issue

5

fYear

1992

fDate

9/1/1992 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

933

Lastpage

940

Abstract

The authors have augmented the NASA DC-8 AIRSAR instrument with a pair of C-band antennas displaced across track to form an interferometer sensitive to topographic variations of the Earth´s surface. During the 1991 DC-8 flight campaign, data were acquired over several sites in the US and Europe, and topographic maps were produced from several of these flight lines. Analysis of the results indicate that statistical errors are in the 2-4-m range, while systematic effects due to aircraft motion are in the 10-20-m range. The initial results from development of a second-generation processor show that aircraft motion compensation algorithms reduce the systematic variations to 2 m, while the statistical errors are reduced to 2-3 m

Keywords

geophysical equipment; radiowave interferometers; remote sensing by radar; synthetic aperture radar; topography (Earth); AD 1991; C-band antennas; Europe; SAR; TOPSAR interferometric radar topographic mapping instrument; aircraft motion compensation algorithms; remote sensing; second-generation processor; statistical errors; systematic effects; topographic maps; Aircraft; Earth; Europe; Instruments; Motion analysis; Motion compensation; NASA; Radar antennas; Radar tracking; Surface topography;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Geoscience and Remote Sensing, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0196-2892

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/36.175328

Filename

175328