Spaceborne demonstration of coherent SAR tomography for future companion satellite SAR missions

This contribution is dedicated to present tomographic investigations on 3D vegetation imaging for future spaceborne SAR missions. The main problem to tackle when performing tomography via repeat-pass spaceborne data is that the temporal decorrelation between acquisitions can be very severe making it difficult to achieve reliable results. In this context, if two or more sensors are available to perform the surveys, a set of quasi-simultaneous data can be achieved for a certain time instant. It is understood that for such data the temporal decorrelation effect as well as the atmospheric artefacts will be strongly mitigated. By varying the acquisition geometry, it is in principle now possible to achieve cross-range resolution and retrieve the vertical profile via SAR tomography. The present paper focuses on a two-satellite scenario like TanDEM-X [1], Tandem-L [2], SAOCOM-CS [3]. In particular, TanDEM-X data, acquired in a pursuit monostatic mode, is employed to perform the demonstration over boreal as well as tropical forest.