InSAR Image Regularization and DEM Error Correction With Fractal Surface Scattering Model

This paper presents a method for removing spikes in digital elevation models (DEMs) caused by residues in interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) phase image. We consider that the scattering mechanism is properly modeled by the small perturbation method for fractal surfaces and present a model that relates the phase and magnitude in InSAR image. This data model provides the regularization term of the method, without directly enforcing smooth phase or magnitude. Noise models are given by additive Gaussian for the phase and multiplicative non-unit-mean gamma for the magnitude. Experiments with simulated and real L-band data show that the proposed method considerably improves DEM accuracy and simultaneously suppresses speckle and phase noise.