Topographic Mapping with Back-Projection Tomography and Geocoded Polarimetric SAR Images

Abstract:
Digital surface models (DSMs) are sets of elevation data of the Earth’s surface useful for urban and forest studies. They can be derived from a set of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images acquired in a tomographic configuration. The combination of SAR tomography (TomoSAR) and polarimetry (PolSAR) can provide more informative DSMs. In this work, we present steps for deriving DSMs with polarimetric tomographic (PolTomoSAR) single-look complex (SLC) products focused in map geometry (geocoded) by means of a time domain back-projection algorithm (TDBP). Performance analysis showed that in comparison to those obtained with single-polarization TomoSAR data, PolTomoSAR yields DSMs with more accurate height estimates and higher point densities.