ENVISAT ASAR data reduction: impact on SAR interferometry

Author

McLeod, Ian H. ; Cumming, Ian G. ; Seymour, Michael S.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng., British Columbia Univ., Vancouver, BC, Canada

Volume

36

Issue

2

fYear

1998

fDate

3/1/1998 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

589

Lastpage

602

Abstract

An onboard synthetic aperture radar (SAR) signal-data reduction algorithm called Flexible Block Adaptive Quantization (FBAQ) was developed in 1994 for the Advanced SAR (ASAR) on the ENVISAT satellite. This paper presents work done in a follow-on study that examined the impact of the data-reduction algorithm on the accuracy of two digital elevation models (DEM) produced by using the technique of repeat-pass SAR interferometry. All three allowable data compression ratios were investigated to determine the maximum compression ratio appropriate for SAR interferometry. Based on the scenes studied it was concluded that a reduction from 8 to 4-bits/sample was the maximum data reduction ratio appropriate for precision SAR interferometry, while 8 to 3-bits/sample and 8 to 2-bits/sample encoding were only appropriate for less-demanding wide-swath applications

Keywords

adaptive signal processing; geodesy; geophysical techniques; radar imaging; radar signal processing; remote sensing by radar; spaceborne radar; synthetic aperture radar; topography (Earth); Advanced SAR; ENVISAT ASAR data reduction; FBAQ; Flexible Block Adaptive Quantization; SAR interferometry; adaptive signal processing; data compression ratio; data reduction algorithm; data-reduction algorithm; digital elevation model; geodesy; geophysical measurement technique; land surface; land surface topography; maximum compression ratio; onboard radar signal processing; radar imaging; radar remote sensing; repeat-pass SAR interferometry; spaceborne radar; synthetic aperture radar; terrain mapping; Application specific integrated circuits; Data compression; Digital elevation models; Encoding; High-resolution imaging; Image sensors; Interferometry; Quantization; Satellites; Synthetic aperture radar;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Geoscience and Remote Sensing, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0196-2892

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/36.662741

Filename

662741