The main lobe and the side lobes of strong scatterers are sometimes clearly visible in SAR images. Sidelobe reduction is of particular importance when imaging scenes contain objects such as ships and buildings having very large radar cross sections. Amplitude weighting is usually used to suppress sidelobes of the images at the expense of broadening of mainlobe, loss of resolution and degradation of SAR images. The Spatial Variant Apodization (SVA) is an Adaptive SideLobe Reduction (ASLR) technique that provides high effective suppression of sidelobes without broadening mainlobe. In this paper, we apply SVA to process COSMO-SkyMed (CSK) StripMap and Spotlight X-band data and compare the images with the standard products obtained via Hamming window processing. Different test sites have been selected in Italy, Argentina, California and Germany where corner reflectors are installed. Experimental results show clearly the resolution improvement (20%) while sidelobe kept to a low level when SVA processing is applied compared with Hamming windowing one. Then SVA technique is applied to Interferometric SAR image processing (INSAR) using a CSK StripMap interferometric tandem-like data pair acquired on East-California. The interferometric coherence of image pair obtained without sidelobe reduction (SCS_U) and with sidelobe reduction performed via Hamming window and via SVA are compared. High resolution interferometric products have been obtained with small variation of mean coherence when using ASLR products with respect to hamming windowed and no windowed one.
This paper focuses on the generation of Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) with COSMO SkyMed Spotlight data in providing DEMs. In particular, the peculiarity of Spotlight data (affected from Doppler centroid drift) is investigated, and the use of the processing chain included in the Delft Object-oriented Radar Interferometric Software (DORIS [1]). The effects of not correctly handled Doppler drift is shown. The standard interferometric processing, without Doppler drift handling, has been applied to Spotlight image pairs, resulting in interferometric coherence loss in interferograms as we move away from scene center. So, the standard processing chain has been modified to take in account the Doppler centroid drift affecting Spotlight data and very high resolution and accuracy DEMs have been obtained. Some Spotlight image pairs have been processed and the obtained DEMs have been shown and analyzed proving the high details and product accuracy.
Accurate geolocation of SAR data is nowadays strongly required because of the increasing number of high resolution SAR sensors available as for instance from TerraSAR-X / TanDEM-X and COSMO-SkyMed space-borne missions. Both stripmap and spotlight acquisition modes provide from metric to sub metric spatial resolution which demands the ability to ensure a geolocation accuracy of the same order of magnitude. Geocoding quality depends on several factors and in particular on the knowledge of the actual values of the satellite position along the orbit, and the delay introduced by the additional path induced by changes in the refractivity index due to the presence of the atmosphere (the so called Atmospheric Path Delay or APD). No definitive results are reported yet in the scientific literature, concerning the best performances achievable by the COSMO-SkyMed constellation in terms of geolocation accuracy. Preliminary studies have shown that sub-pixel geolocation accuracies are hardly achievable with COSMO-SkyMed data. The present work aims at inspecting the origin of the geolocation error sources in COSMO-SkyMed Single-look Complex Slant (SCS) products, and to investigate possible strategies for their compensation or mitigation. Five different test sites have been selected in Italy and Argentina, where up to 30 corner reflectors are installed, pointing towards ascending or descending passes. Experimental results are presented and discussed.
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