An Improvement of the Performance of Multiple-Aperture SAR Interferometry (MAI)

Multiple-aperture synthetic aperture radar (SAR) interferometry (MAI) enables the measurement of along-track surface deformations by means of split-beam SAR processing. This paper examines the effects of flat-Earth and topographic phases on the MAI phase and derives formulas to correct them. Detailed MAI processing steps are introduced and discussed with particular consideration given to coherence improvement, as well as to computational efficiency. Forward- and backward-looking MAI pairs have different perpendicular baselines, which play a key role in phase distortion; consequently, an orbital deviation of only a few centimeters could result in a significant flat-Earth phase. A second-order polynomial model was used to estimate the perpendicular baseline difference. European Remote Sensing 2 satellite SAR data sets of the Hector Mine earthquake event in 1999 were used for performance evaluation. The proposed processing with the flat-Earth and topographic phase corrections achieved precision of along-track deformation ranging from 10.2 to 13.1 cm. Two coseismic pairs were compared and the standard deviation of the difference between the two independent measurements was 7.0 cm, with a mean difference of -0.24 cm. Thus, the measurement accuracy of MAI was improved using flat-Earth correction and coherence enhancement.