A CubeSat Add-On for Resolving Phase Unwrapping Errors in Single-Pass SAR Interferometry

Abstract:
Digital elevation models can be obtained from synthetic aperture radar (SAR) interferograms though the process of phase unwrapping. Even with high-quality bistatic interferograms, such as those produced by TanDEM-X, however, unwrapping errors occur, which are usually resolved by exploiting an additional acquisition over the same scene with a shorter baseline. This work proposes to upgrade a bistatic interferometric SAR system with a low-cost CubeSat add-on that allows detecting and resolving phase unwrapping errors in a single pass of the satellites. Simulation analyses show the effectiveness of the CubeSat add-on in spite of its much smaller antenna aperture.