Title
Range Geolocation Accuracy of C-/L-Band SAR and its Implications for Operational Stack Coregistration
Abstract
Time series analysis of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and interferometric SAR generally starts with coregistration for the precise alignment of the stack of images. Here, we introduce a model-adjusted geometrical image coregistration (MAGIC) algorithm for stack coregistration. This algorithm corrects for atmospheric propagation delays and known surface motions using existing models and ensures simplicity and computational efficiency in the data processing systems. We validate this approach by evaluating the impact of different geolocation errors on stacks of the C-band Sentinel-1 and L-band ALOS-2 data, with a focus on the ionosphere. Our results show that the impact of the ionosphere dominates Sentinel-1 ascending (dusk-side) orbit and ALOS-2 data. After correcting for ionosphere using the JPL high-resolution global ionospheric maps, with topside total electron content (TEC) estimated from GPS receivers onboard the Sentinel-1 platforms, solid Earth tides, and troposphere, the mis-registration RMSE reduces by over a factor of four from 0.20 to 0.05 m for Sentinel-1 and from 2.66 to 0.56 m for ALOS-2. The results demonstrate that for Sentinel-1, the MAGIC approach is accurate enough in the range direction for most applications, including interferometry; while for the L-band SAR, it can be potentially accurate enough if topside TEC is available. Based on our current understanding of different error sources, we evaluate the expected range geolocation error budget for the upcoming NISAR mission with an upper bound of the relative geolocation error of 1.3 and 0.2 m for its L- and S-band SAR, respectively.
Year
DOI
Venue
2022
10.1109/TGRS.2022.3168509
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING
Keywords
DocType
Volume
Synthetic aperture radar, Geology, Delays, Radar, Earth, Atmospheric modeling, Tides, Big-data, coregistration, geodesy, geolocation, interferometric SAR (InSAR), ionosphere, solid Earth tides, synthetic aperture radar (SAR), time series analysis
Journal
60
ISSN
Citations 
PageRank 
0196-2892
0
0.34
References 
Authors
0
7
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Zhang Yunjun100.34
Heresh Fattahi200.68
Xiaoqing Pi300.34
PAUL A. ROSEN425537.73
Mark Simons5113.83
Piyush Agram600.34
Yosuke Aoki700.34