Quality assessment of coherence between 35-day and tandem modes in ERS-1/2 interferometric studies

Abstract

The authors assess the quality of the coherence component /spl gamma/ derived from both tandem and repeat pass interferometric pairs. They first analyse the behavior of the coherence for various window sizes (number of looks). Results show that coherence is very sensitive to window size. A compromise between window size and resolution have to be found in order to better estimate the coherence. They present the first results of simulations using a simple statistical model for the coherence in order to evaluate the noise. Moreover, they investigate the suitability of 35-day repeat pass for land use classification. Repeat pass interferometry (35 days) is not appropriate for this application. Nevertheless, a combination of /spl gamma/ derived from tandem pair, and the /spl Delta//spl gamma/ obtained from both tandem and repeat pass pairs should give useful information for land-use classification.