Correcting topography effects on terrestrial radar maps

The vehicle-based radar named PELICAN has been used in a context of mobile mapping. R-SALM algorithm allows to simultaneously retrieve the trajectory of the vehicle and the map of the environment. This article proposes a method to correct the radar map distortions induced by local topographic effects. The a priori knowledge of the area topography is provided by a digital elevation model. An orthorectification process has been developed to correct the panoramic radar images. By applying the method to the data obtained on a course with large variations in altitude it was shown that the corrected panoramic radar images are contracted by the orthorectification process. An orthorectified map is then built by merging the panoramic images and finally the orthorectified trajectory is compared to the non-orthorectified trajectory.