Space-borne high resolution tomographic interferometry

SAR tomography (TomoSAR) is a way of overcoming the limitations of standard 2-D imaging by achieving focused 3D images. Its capability of 3-D reflectivity reconstruction and multiple scatterers separation has been demonstrated in the urban environment in absence of significant deformation. In this paper, an example which reveals the distortion of 3-D reconstruction result by coupled deformation information is presented. Differential SAR Tomography (or 4-D SAR focusing), a new interferometric mode crossing differential SAR interferometry and the 3-D multi-baseline tomography concepts, are implemented. In this paper, space-borne high resolution differential SAR tomography is demonstrated using TerraSAR-X high resolution spotlight data. High resolution SAR is proven to be very attractive for city mapping.