Deforming and relief interferometric SAR imaging at W-band

Abstract

Interferometry at W Band can be exploited to form images of small deformations with precisions in the order of tenths of microns and retrieve surface relieves. An Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar setup is proposed in which the scattered field is focused using a combination of range compression and backpropagation algorithm. Interferometric images involving micrometric displacements have been obtained showing a good agreement between real and measured displacements. A metallic rough surface deformation test has been first performed, by imaging the phase difference between acquisitions before and after the displacement. The interferometric phase difference between acquisitions can be used to image local deformations from a range of several meters. Furthermore the interferogram coherence shows the degree of decorrelation of the radar reflectivity which provides valuable information for surface random change. Likewise the relief of the surface with an L-shape target is retrieved mapping the phase difference between the two receiving antennas, in this case an static scenario is required.