Improving satellite derived DEMS by using airborne InSAR data: The TanDEM-X/F-SAR case of study

The TanDEM-X mission aims the generation of an accurate global Digital Elevation Model (DEM). On the other hand, due to their flexibility regarding baseline configuration, frequency of acquisition, time and revisit time, airborne SAR interferometers remain viable for the generation of DEMs with very high vertical and horizontal accuracies at a local scale. In this paper, we present an experiment demonstrating the beneficial use of a TanDEM-X intermediate DEM to support the generation of an elevation model from airborne SAR with relative vertical accuracy in the order of centimeters.