Reconstruction of missing data in interferometric SAR systems

Missing echoes in the raw data introduce artifacts that might be noticeable in processed SAR images. As a consequence, recovery methods must be applied to ensure the high quality of the images. Although spectral estimation based interpolators are suitable for the recovery of point-like targets, their efficiency is poor for distributed ones. In this paper we propose a new reconstruction method for interferometric systems, which uses the common information in one image of a coherent pair to recover the other and vice versa. Since a typical example of missing data happens when acquiring with the bistatic mode of TanDEM-X, the proposed method is verified with data from a bistatic TanDEM-X survey in addition to simulated data. The results show that the proposed reconstruction can significantly improve the accuracy of the resulting interferograms.