Spaceborne Spotlight SAR Interferometry With TerraSAR-X

Abstract

Recently, synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data with 1-m resolution acquired by satellites in spotlight mode became available to the public. In this paper, we elucidate the differences between interferometric processing of strip map and of spotlight SAR data, and we outline adequate algorithms for key processing steps such as azimuth Doppler filtering. We further present first TerraSAR-X spotlight interferograms, together with an evaluation of the paraeters that are critical for interferometry. Our results indicate a very good geometric accuracy, stability, and phase fidelity of the TerraSAR-X sensor and its products. From the interferograms, we are able to determine the heights of larger buildings and millimeter-scale structural deformation in several examples. The high detail level of imaged buildings and the good temporal phase coherence of urban areas in X-band make spotlight interferometry an exciting processing technique that enables new applications such as surveying individual buildings.