Dual-Frequency Airborne SAR for Large Scale Mapping of Tidal Flats

Abstract

Digital elevation models of tidal flats are a most valuable data source for the water management of coastal areas and need frequent updates to account for changes in sedimentation, erosion and identification of damages in building infrastructure. This paper presents the conceptual design, the processing methodology and first results of an airborne SAR campaign conducted in July 2019 at the German North Sea coast, showing the potential for accurate monitoring of height changes at decimeter level in mudflat areas, as well as indication of vegetation cover and water flooded areas.

Evaluating Different Water-Land-Boundary Approximations to Improve Sar-Derived Digital Elevation Models

“…In the conducted measurement campaign, fully polarimetric data were acquired in the S-and L-band and VV-polarized data were acquired in the X-band. Further acquisition parameters are given in (Pinheiro et al, 2020b). The polarimetric image of the study area is depicted in Figure 4.…”

“…Interferometric measurements are conducted in repeat-pass configuration and additionally with the single-pass S-and X-band interferometers. The interferometric SAR data sets are used to generate a DEM (1 m raster) (Pinheiro et al, 2020b). Furthermore, a mask was generated that separates water and land areas, based on the S-band data.…”

“…Moreover, the reflective property of the water surfaces leads to the complete decorrelation in repeat-pass interferograms, therefore the interferometric coherence is suitable as a distinguishing feature. Using appropriate thresholds, the determination of which is described in (Pinheiro et al, 2020b), each pixel is assigned to the class water or land, resulting in a 2D WLB, denoted as IMASKE.…”

“…Airborne SAR-data (F-SAR) is expected to overcome typical problems of ALS in tidal areas and aims to complement ALS data in the future (Horn et al, 2017). Improvements are expected due to a much higher swath and footprint at a comparable spatial resolution, complemented by high resolution multiband data sets (Pinheiro et al, 2020b).…”

On the Frequency Sweep Rate Estimation in Airborne FMCW SAR Systems

“…In the last years, an increasing interest toward Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) systems [1] mounted onboard aerial platforms, such as airplanes [2][3][4][5][6], helicopters [7], unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) [8,9] and drones [10,11], is registered [12]. This is mainly due to the high operative flexibility and relatively low operative costs of these platforms.…”