Adaptive processing for spaceborne monitoring of forests using SAR tomography

Abstract:
This paper proposes different processing techniques for the polarimetric 3-D imaging of forested areas using multibaseline interferometric SAR data, acquired in TanDEM configuration from spaceborne SAR sensors. TanDEM-like acquisition modes, based on the simultaneous measurement of interferometric pairs, represent a high-potential alternative for the tomographic imaging of scenes with rapidly decorrelating scattering features using a spaceborne SAR. Unlike coventional tomographic processing, this correlation tomography requires specific processing techniques to estimate the covariance matrix from single-pass InSAR pairs that are uncorrelated one from another. These techniques are proposed in this paper and their potential for boreal forest characterization are evaluated in the frame of the preparation of the SAOCOM CS mission using ESA’s BIOSAR II campaigna data sets acquired at L band by the DLR ESAR sensor.