A Python Based InSAR Processing Tool For ISRO SAR Missions

Abstract

Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) is a remote sensing technique widely used to generate elevation maps, commonly known as interferograms, that depicts surface deformations and topographic trends. Changes in topography and deformations can be measured over span of days to years and are recorded in the form of fringes. Taking into consideration the upcoming NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission, which is designed to support wide-swath interferometry, it is high time to develop a InSAR processing tool dedicated to ISRO missions. Due to its versatile features, popularity, flexibility and the huge library support, the tool development was chosen to be in Python3 programming language. In this paper the first results obtained from the in-house developed, python 3 based, software tool for InSAR processing are presented. The tool is slated to become part of the Microwave Data Analysis Software (MIDAS) of SAC, which is a generic SAR processing software suite. Currently, the tool accepts ERS 1/2, ENVISAT, RADARSAT-2 and ALOS-2 data. For verification purpose, the outputs generated by the tool are compared with those generated by the freely available Delft Object-oriented Radar Interferometric Software (DORIS) developed by the Delft Institute of Earth Observation and Space Systems (DEOS), Delft University of Technology.