Detection of scatterer multiplicity in spaceborne SAR tomography with array errors

Abstract

Processing of multibaseline/multitemporal SAR data from complex urban or infrastructure areas is of increasing interest. In this framework, the detection of single and multiple layover scatterers is an important problem, for an extensive and accurate signal interpretation. Recently, an hybrid 3D adaptive tomography-complex data domain model fitting detection method has been proposed. In this work, the basic method is tested with simulated data corrupted by non-idealities, in particular residual atmospheric compensation errors. Afterwards, the analyzed effects specific of the presence of the data non-idealities are taken into account for a more robust design of a detection method based on the same principle. The effectiveness of the algorithm is experimented with real satellite C-band data.