Layover solution in multibaseline INSAR using robust beamforming

Abstract

In this work, we examine how to reliably exploit baseline diversity of a multichannel interferometric SAR system to overcome the layover problem. The problem arises when different height contributions collapse in the same range-azimuth resolution cell, due to the presence of strong terrain slopes or discontinuities in the sensed scene. Several multilook approaches have recently been suggested to counter act the presence of speckle, exploiting a repeated uniform spatial sampling of the baseline. In practice, the baseline steering vectors will generally be imprecise, resulting in array miscalibration. Herein, we propose a non-parametric multilook approach based on robust Capon beamforming, allowing for uncertainty in the steering vectors.