Radar Imaging of Urban Areas by Means of Very High-Resolution SAR and Interferometric SAR

In remote-sensing applications, the monitoring of urban areas by means of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) sensors has grown into a valuable and indispensable tool. Although SAR imaging with a spatial resolution down to 1 m is widespread, a resolution as fine as 10 cm and below is offered only by very few SAR sensors worldwide. In this paper, the potential of very high-resolution radar imaging of urban areas by means of SAR and interferometric imaging will be demonstrated and discussed. Results of urban SAR imaging down to subdecimeter resolution will be shown. Even though the immanent layover situation in urban areas is an obstacle to simple image understanding, a remedy can be found by using interferometric SAR imaging. Interferometric results based on very high-resolution SAR images acquired over urban areas, partially with a severe layover situation, will be presented. The corresponding data was acquired with the phased array multifunctional imaging radar (PAMIR), the X-band demonstrator of the Research Institute for High Frequency Physics and Radar Techniques (FHR), Forschungsgesellschaft fur Angewandte Naturwissenschaften (FGAN), Wachtberg, Germany. It can be stated that high-resolution interferometric SAR will be an important basis for upcoming radar-based urban analysis.