A Novel Two Dimensional Theory for Topography Estimation with Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar

Abstract

Interferometric synthetic aperture radar (INSAR) image contains phase difference information which can be used to estimate the surface topography. In this paper, a two dimensional theory has been presented to estimate the surface elevation from phase difference interferogram of spaceborne INSAR using fringe line detection technique. This can be reduced to a one dimensional mathematical approach explained earlier by Lin et al. The proposed technique gives better understanding for spaceborne INSAR in comparison to existing methods available.

Indexing terms:

• SAR interferometry
• Topography estimation
• Terrain mapping INSAR
• Fringe line
• Phase unwrapping