Generation of Accurate DEMs Using DInSAR Methodology (TopoDInSAR)

Abstract

This letter presents a new methodology for the generation of digital elevation models (DEMs) by means of differential interferometry (DInSAR) algorithms with no need for classical phase unwrapping. During the last years, several advanced DInSAR proposals have been published, most of them based on a linear deformation adjustment together with topographic error estimation. In those cases, the input data are composed of a set of differential interferograms with different temporal gaps. Consequently, interferograms are affected by severe problems of temporal decorrelation, and the estimation of the topography can only be performed over coherent pixels, which are sparsely spread over the image. The proposal presented in this letter consists in the usage of a set of highly coherent topographic interferograms as input data for an advanced DInSAR algorithm. Then, using classical linear model adjustment, a detailed DEM of the observed area is estimated. This methodology is presented jointly with results obtained by processing real data acquired by European Remote Sensing satellites 1 and 2