Sensitivity of DEMs generated from interferometric cartwheel configurations

Former analysis revealed that the vertical height accuracy of digital elevation models (DEMs) generated by synthetic aperture radar interferometry (InSAR) mainly depends on the precise knowledge of baseline length, baseline tilt angle and interferometric phase offset. Recently slightly different formations of passive microsatellites which simultaneously receive signals transmitted from an active spaceborne radar system and have near circular orbits were proposed. This paper presents the sensitivity of DEMs generated from such constellations to important interferometric parameters. PALSAR (ALOS), ASAR (Envisat) and TerraSAR-X are considered as illuminating SAR systems and a three dimensional SAR geometry that includes an ellipsoidal Earth geometry (WGS84) is applied.