Optimal data acquisition and height retrieval in repeat-track geosynchronous SAR interferometry

Abstract

Geosynchronous synthetic aperture radar (GEO SAR) will move in a high orbit of ~36,000 km with a long integration time of hundreds of seconds. It is obviously impacted by orbital perturbations and the Earth's rotation, which can give rise to un-parallel repeated tracks and induce a squint-looking angle in the repeat-track SAR interferometry (InSAR). Thus, the traditional data acquisition method using in the zero-Doppler centroid (ZDC) configuration to generate the GEO InSAR pair will bring about the obvious rotation-induced decorrelation. Moreover, the conventional height retrieval model with the broadside mode imaging geometry and the approximate expression of the interferometric baseline will induce large height and localization errors in the GEO InSAR processing. In this paper, a novel data acquisition method is firstly presented based on a criterion of optimal minimal rotational-induced decorrelation (OMRD). It can significantly improve the coherence of the InSAR pair. Then, considering the localization equations in the squint-looking mode and the accurate expression of the interferometric baseline, a modified GEO InSAR height retrieval model is proposed to mitigate the height and localization errors induced by the conventional model. Finally, computer simulations are carried out for the verification of the proposed methods. In a typical inclined GEO InSAR configuration, the averaged total correlation coefficient increases more than 0.4, and height errors of hundreds of meters and localization errors of more than 10 degrees are removed.