Imaging of Single and Double Scatterers in Urban Areas via SAR Tomography

Microwave scattering is a rather complex mechanism, especially in urban areas. Three-dimensional (3-D) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) tomography is a technique that uses multiple views to map the scattering power at different heights, thus extending the capability of SAR sensors to fully image the scene in the 3-D space. This paper presents a first validation of spaceborne long-term SAR tomography by demonstrating the capability to resolve a simple layover case, i.e., to separate single- and double-scattering mechanisms within imaged pixels. Results obtained with real data acquired by the European Remote Sensing 1 and 2 (ERS-1 and ERS-2) satellites over the urban area of Napoli are presented. As an additional contribution, an innovative algorithm estimating residual topography and surface deformation, called the spatial-differencing technique, is also discussed in detail at the data calibration stage