DEM-Based SAR Pixel-Area Estimation for Enhanced Geocoding Refinement and Radiometric Normalization

Precise terrain-corrected georeferencing of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images and derived products in range–Doppler coordinates is important with respect to several aspects, such as data interpretation, combination with other geodata products, and transformation of, e.g., terrain heights into SAR geometry as used in differential interferometric SAR (DInSAR) applications. For georeferencing, a lookup table is calculated and then refined based on a coregistration of the actual SAR image to a simulated SAR image. The impact of using two different implementations of such a simulator of topography-induced radar brightness, 1) an approach based on angular relationships and 2) a pixel-area-based method, is discussed in this letter. It is found that the pixel-area-based method leads to considerable improvements with regard to the robustness of georeferencing and also with regard to radiometric normalization in layover-affected areas.