Damage Detection in Urban Areas by SAR Imagery

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) provides high-quality images in all weather and all time conditions. It shows promise for acquiring spatial and temporal data for urban analysis. The objective of this study is threefold. First, the mathematical theory and physical background of SAR data acquisition and processing are described and introduced to the civil and engineering mechanics community. Second, a simulation tool based on the electromagnetic formulation is used to simulate SAR imagery of real-sized buildings as a proof of concept to demonstrate the usefulness of SAR applications and their imaging potentials and characteristics relevant to urban areas. Our third and last objective is to study the capabilities of damage and change diagnostic schemes based on simulated complex SAR images of pre- and post-events. A SAR image is obtained from a coherent imagery system and can be described in three dimensions, sometimes referred to as a complex imagery system, whereby two dimensions represent the spatial event of the image and the third dimension represents the phase content of the image. The phase information is relevant to the detection of the finer details in the image.