MetaSensing Airborne Radar: X- and Ku-Band
Single-Pass Digital Surface Model Generation
Luca Marotti
Sarmore GmBH,
Munich, Germany
Luca.marotti@sarmore.com
Abstract Interferometric SAR (InSAR) techniques are an
important tool for the generation of three-dimensional
topographic maps of the Earth. Synthetic Aperture Radar
sensors operated on airborne platforms can deliver high quality
data for the generation of the Digital Surface Model as well as for
the Digital Elevation Models. This paper describe the procedures
and algorithms to generate the Digital Surface Model from
MetaSensing airborne SAR sensors at X- and Ku-band with
single pass.
Index Terms Digital Surface Model, Airborne SAR,
Interferometry, MetaSensing
I. INTRODUCTION
Interferometric SAR (InSAR) techniques have become a
well-established tool for the generation of three dimensional
topographic maps of the Earth. In the last decades, several
space-borne missions and airborne sensors have been designed
for InSAR applications leading to increasing systems
performance and new algorithms developments. Opposite to
space-borne sensors, airborne sensors offer great flexibility in
terms of geometric configurations and achievable resolutions
which can be customized to different users needs or
applications. On the other side, however, turbulences affecting
light weight and low height flying airborne platforms can
prevent to obtain accurate results if not correctly compensated.
The principal SAR image errors are defocusing, co-registration
errors and undesired phase undulations in the generated
interferograms. Precise processing algorithms which use
accurate platforms trajectory information (up to centimeters)
have to be employed to cope with such inaccuracies.
Nevertheless, the limited precision of modern navigation
systems, in the order of 1-5 cm, causes wrong impulse
response positioning and phase artefacts preventing to obtain
accurate InSAR products. These remaining errors are referred
to as residual motion errors (RME). In single-pass
configurations the antenna are firmly mounted on a fixed frame
and subject to the same motion deviations. For this reason the
majority of RME cancel out when combining interferometric
channels. Still, however, phase undulations, mainly caused by
unknown roll errors, might be present in the final
interferograms provoking erroneous phase to height conversion
if not accounted for.
978-1-4673-7297-8/15/$31.00 2015
c IEEE
Adriano Meta, Alex Coccia
MetaSensing BV
Noordwijk, Netherlands
Adriano.meta@metasensing.com
The following paper describes the last developments at
MetaSensing BV concerning airborne radar systems design and
synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data processing, with focus to
Digital Surface Model (DSM) generation. The antenna
configurations and the system performance will be described
with emphasis to the novel simultaneous X- and Ku band
single-pass system. The processing methodology will be
expound concerning the focusing procedures and the post-
processing techniques. The estimation and correction of RME
will be also analyzed showing its rapid convergence within few
iterations. Finally experimental results obtained with data
acquired in a test-site close to Teuge in the Netherlands will
presented. DSM generated at X- and Ku-band will be shown
and compared with Lidar DSM, proving the reachable
performance of the overall procedure.
II. DATA AND SYSTEM DESCRIPTION
The MetaSensing sensor which was used for the
acquisitions is an FMCW [1] interferometric dual band (X- and
Ku-band) radar. The system was installed on a Cessna 208
Grand Caravan (see Figure 1), resulting in a left side looking
SAR system. The lateral cargo door can be noticed, behind
which the antennas were installed during the campaign. Single
pass cross-track interferometric data, at X- and Ku-Band (VV),
were simultaneously acquired over a region in the proximity of
the Teuge airport in the Netherlands. The acquisitions were
performed during October 2013, in the framework of a project
for flood plains monitoring therefore the plain surrounding a
river was subject for observation. The airplane carrying the
radar system flew at the nominal altitude of 900m and at a
speed of 50m/s. The transmitted bandwidth was 175MHz while
the baseline measured 0.5m (completely vertical) and the look
angle 45 degrees. The main system characteristics, the
geometric configuration and the processing parameters are
summarized in Table 1.
The Lidar data used for the final comparison corresponds to
the AHN2 project (Actueel Hoogtebestand Nederland 2) ended
in 2012 and freely available at the PDOK website. The DSM is
distributed in raster files of 10000 x 12500 pixels with a 0.5 x
0.5m spacing.
184

Table 1: Main system and processing parameters.
Frequency band X Ku
Central Freq. (GHz) 9.6 17.25
PRF (Hz) 2500
Tx Bw (MHz) 175
Processed Squints (deg.) -4, -4.5, -5, -5.5, -6
Processed Az. Bw (Hz) 200
Nominal Altitude (m) 900
Vertical Baseline (m) 0.5
Mean Velocity (m/s) 50
Fig. 1 Cessna 208 Gran Caravan
III. DATA PROCESSING
A. Focusing
The azimuth focussing of SAR data has been performed by
means of the time-domain direct back-projection [2]. This
method is simple to implement and has the advantage to carry
out ideal motion compensation and to handle general aperture
geometries. Small and low altitude aircraft, in fact, as the one
employed in the present study, are subject to trajectory
deviation up to several meters, depending to the weather
condition. These deviations have to be recorded by the
GPS+IMU unit and are processed offline, using DGPS
techniques, to reach centimetres orbit precision.
The back-projection algorithm works interpolating each
received echo at the time corresponding to the signal delay of
each illuminated image point. An external Digital Elevation
Model (DEM), in our case SRTM, can be used for computing
the range distances. By coherently adding each echo
contribution, for each image point, focusing is obtained. A
prior presumming step has been applied to the data in order to
reduce the number of pulses and consequently the
computational burden. First order motion compensation
(MOCO) has been performed to accurately select the exact
portion of the spectrum to be filtered, taking mid-range as
2015 IEEE 5th Asia-Pacific Conference on Synthetic Aperture Radar(APSAR)
reference. The output image grid has been chosen in slant-
range azimuth to ease post-processing computations.
B. Post-processing
After the focusing procedure, the images of each
interferometric channel result referred to the same slant-range
azimuth output grid and therefore already co-registered. At this
point they are ready to enter the interferometric chain. At a first
stage the residual phase, obtained subtracting the synthetic
phase of the external DEM from the interferogram, and the
coherence are computed. Given the processing squint selection
and the small antenna separation, neither azimuth nor range
spectrum filtering are necessary.
Further, RME are estimated with a sub-aperture approach
i.e. Multisquint [3]. In this method two or more sub-look
interferograms are generated between master and slave image,
filtering different parts of the original images spectra. Through
a weighted average, a differential interferogram is created
which is proportional to the RME derivative along the azimuth
direction. The horizontal and vertical error component are then
estimated by means of model based integration. Due to the
high coherence of the single-pass acquisition no more than
three sub-looks in azimuth have to be selected to accurately
estimate RME within three iterations. Care has to be taken if
the data mean squint angle is different from zero, as it often
happen at X- and Ku- Band due to airplane attitude variations.
The constant baseline error, which in principle cannot be
retrieved by Multisquint, and linear baseline errors are
estimated again with a model based integration applied on the
residual phase, corrected from higher order RME.
Phase unwrapping and calibration procedures follow the
RME estimation. Finally a geocoding step lead to the desired
heights map. For convenience, the reference frame of the
generated DSM is generally in ground coordinates but can be
easily transformed in latitude-longitude, UTM or any other
map projection, if desired.
Two or more squints within the azimuth bandwidth, in our
case five (see Table 1), can be processed and passed through
the interferometric chain. The final height maps can be
averaged to further limit the height errors arising from
undesired interferometric phase variance.
IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
As depicted in Figure 2 the scene is completely flat and
composed of agricultural fields, some forested regions and two
small lakes. The highway bridge, crossing the right part of the
image, can be also noticed. The SAR images extend for 0.5Km
x 3,5Km (range x azimuth) dimension and were processed with
an azimuth bandwidth of 200Hz to allow a better sub-aperture
division during the RME correction step. For the estimation,
three sub-looks of 30Hz bandwidth with central frequency at -
15Hz, 0Hz, and 15Hz respect to the mean Doppler centroid
were generated. The high data coherence leads to a rapid
convergence of the procedure, already after the second iteration
(see Figure 3). The red line (corresponding to the first RME
estimation) depicts an estimated baseline error in slant-range of
about 0.9mm (max. value) at mid-range. Such a small RME
185
value would already cause an interferometric phase deviation to the measured Lidar topography while the blue line represent
of several tenths of degrees (depending on the frequency band) the SAR topography. Once more the two plots reveal the high
which would prevent to obtain accurate DSM. Figure 4 shows degree of similarity Lidar and SAR DSM for both the
an example of the interferometric phase, for Ku-band case, frequency bands.
before and after RME estimation. As it can be observed no
phase undulation are visible in the interferogram after the
correction

a)

Fig. 2: Amplitude grey scaled image of the observed scene.

b)

c)

d)
Fig. 3: Estimated RME at mid-range after three iterations. Red: first iteration.
Blue: second iteration. Green: third iteration.

e)
Fig. 5: SAR and Lidar DSM color coded representation and profiles along the
azimuth. X-band DSM (a), Ku-Band DSM (b), Lidar DSM (c). X-Band profile
overlapped to Lidar (d), Ku-Band profile overlapped to Lidar (e).

Fig. 4: Residual interferometric phase before and after RME correction for the
Ku-band case. Upper part: before correction. Lower part: after correction. REFERENCES

The generated DSM in X and Ku-band are depicted in Figure 5

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In Figure 5 (d, e) a cut along azimuth of the DSM is
represented for both X- and Ku-band. The red line correspond

186 2015 IEEE 5th Asia-Pacific Conference on Synthetic Aperture Radar(APSAR)