Remote sensing data quality model: from data sources to lifecycle phases

ABSTRACTThe importance of data quality assessment has significantly increased with the boom of information technology and the growing demand for remote sensing (RS) data. The Remote Sensing Data Qu..

Doppler Centroid Estimation for Airborne SAR Supported by POS and DEM

It is difficult to estimate the Doppler frequency and modulating rate for airborne SAR by using traditional vector method due to instable flight and complex terrain. In this paper, it is qualitatively analyzed that the impacts of POS, DEM and their errors on airborne SAR Doppler parameters. Then an innovative vector method is presented based on the range-coplanarity equation to estimate the Doppler centroid taking the POS and DEM as auxiliary data. The effectiveness of the proposed method is validated and analyzed via the simulation experiments. The theoretical analysis and experimental results show that the method can be used to estimate the Doppler centroid with high accuracy even in the cases of high relief, instable flight, and large squint SAR

A Parallel Computing Paradigm for Pan-Sharpening Algorithms of Remotely Sensed Images on a Multi-Core Computer

Pan-sharpening algorithms are data-and computation-intensive, and the processing performance can be poor if common serial processing techniques are adopted. This paper presents a parallel computing paradigm for pan-sharpening algorithms based on a generalized fusion model and parallel computing techniques. The developed modules, including eight typical pan-sharpening algorithms, show that the framework can be applied to implement most algorithms. The experiments demonstrate that if parallel strategies are adopted, in the best cases the fastest times required to finish the entire fusion operation (including disk input/output (I/O) and computation) are close to the time required to directly read and write the images without any computation. The parallel processing implemented on a workstation with two CPUs is able to perform these operations up to 13.9 times faster than serial execution. An algorithm in the framework is 32.6 times faster than the corresponding version in the ERDAS IMAGINE software. Additionally, no obvious differences in the fusion effects are observed between the fusion results of different implemented versions

On the Use of Cross-Correlation between Volume Scattering and Helix Scattering from Polarimetric SAR Data for the Improvement of Ship Detection

Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) ship detection is an important maritime application. However, azimuth ambiguities caused by the finite sampling of the Doppler spectrum are often visible in SAR images and are always mistaken as ships by classic detection techniques, like the Constant False Alarm Rate (CFAR). It is known that radar targets and azimuth ambiguities have different characteristics in polarimetric SAR (PolSAR) data, i.e., first ambiguities usually have strong odd- or double-bounce scattering and the maximum amplitude of the first ambiguity in SHV is always considerably smaller than that of the corresponding target for zero or high velocity. On the basis of this characteristics, this paper finds that first ambiguities usually have low volume scattering power relative to ships and almost have no helix scattering by Yamaguchi decomposition. But some residual ambiguities still exit in the volume scattering power and have similar scattering intensity to small ships, and some parts of a ship also have zero helix scattering owing to some physical factors (e.g., ship structure, radar incidence angle, etc.). Thus, for high-precision ship detection, a new ship detection method based on cross-correlation between the volume and helix scattering mechanisms derived from Yamaguchi decomposition is proposed to avoid false alarms caused by azimuth ambiguities and enhance Target-to-Clutter Ratio (TCR) for improving the miss detection rate of small ships. By experiments, it is proved that our method can work effectively and has high detection accuracy

Multi-image Matching of Airborne SAR Imagery by SANCC

In order to improve accuracy of SAR matching, a multi-image matching method based on sum of adaptive normalized cross-correlation (SANCC) is proposed. It utilizes geometrical and radiometric information of multi-baselinesynthetic aperture radar (SAR)images effectively. Firstly, imaging parameters, platform parameters and approximate digital surface model (DSM) are used to predict matching line. Secondly, similarity and proximity in Gestalt theory are introduced to SANCC, and SANCC measures of potential matching points along the matching line are calculated. Thirdly, multi-image matching results and object coordinates of matching points are obtained by winner-take-all (WTA) optimization strategy. The approach has been demonstrated with airborne SAR images acquired by a Chinese airborne SAR system (CASMSAR system). The experimental results indicate that the proposed algorithm is effective for providing dense and accuracy matching points, reducing the number of mismatches caused by repeated textures, and offering a better solution to match in poor textured areas

A Multi-Scale Spatial Difference Approach to Estimating Topography Correlated Atmospheric Delay in Radar Interferograms

The Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) has been widely used as a powerful technique for monitoring land surface deformations over the last three decades. InSAR observations can be plagued by atmospheric phase delays; some have a roughly linear relationship with the ground elevation, which can be approximated using a linear model. However, the estimation results of this linear relationship are sometimes affected by phase ramps such as orbital errors, tidal loading, etc. In this study, we present a new approach to estimate the transfer function of vertical stratification phase delays and the transfer function of phase ramps. Our method uses the idea of multi-scale spatial differences to decompose the atmospheric phase delay into the vertical stratification component, phase ramp component, and other features. This decomposition makes the correlation between the vertical stratification phase delays and topography more significant and stable. This can establish the correlation between the different scales and phase ramps. We demonstrate our approach using a synthetic test and two real interferograms. In the synthetic test, the transfer functions estimated by our method were closer to the design values than those estimated by the full interferogram–topography correlation approach and the band-pass filtering approach. In the first real interferogram, out of the 9 sub-regions corrected by the proposed method, 7 sub-regions were outperformed the full interferogram–topography correlation approach, and 8 sub-regions were superior to the band-pass filtering method. Our technique offers a greater correction effect and robustness for coseismic deformation signals in the second real interferogram

A Global Optimal Coherence Method for Multi-baseline InSAR Elevation Inversion

A global optimal coherence method for elevation inversion from multi-baseline polarimetric InSAR data is proposed. The multi-baseline polarimetric InSAR data used in experiments were obtained by Chinese X-SAR system and Germany's E-SAR system. Through combining several full polarimetric InSAR images, the proposed method constructs the multi-baseline polarimetric InSAR coherency matrix, and solves the optimal interferograms under global optimal coherence criterion. The optimal interferograms generated by global optimal coherence method were used to calculate the elevation of target with multi-baseline InSAR elevation inversion method. The proposed method reduces the influence of different scattering centers effectively using multi-baseline InSAR, which improves the accuracy and reliability of the interferometric phase and eventually improves the accuracy of DEM. The results verify the validity of the proposed method

A StereoSAR Matching Method Based on Disparity Maps Fusion

A matching algorithm based on disparity maps fusion is proposed. Firstly, on the basis of normalized cross correlation(NCC), various disparity maps are computed using several different matching window sizes. Then, for each disparity of each disparity maps, the confidence level is evaluated by a new confidence measure, which combined left right consistency(LRC) with signal to noise ratio(SNR). Finally, a new proposed disparity maps fusion strategy is used for formation of weighted disparity map in terms of confidence level. This disparity maps fusion strategy considers not only the confidence level of the disparity itself but also its neighbors. The algorithm has been applied to a pair of TanDEM-X spotlight stereo images. The results demonstrate that the accuracy of DEM generated with the proposed algorithm is improved from 11.28 m to 8.41 m and the gross errors are effectively reduced

Monitoring Building Deformation with InSAR: Experiments and Validation

Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry (InSAR) techniques are increasingly applied for monitoring land subsidence. The advantages of InSAR include high accuracy and the ability to cover large areas; nevertheless, research validating the use of InSAR on building deformation is limited. In this paper, we test the monitoring capability of the InSAR in experiments using two landmark buildings; the Bohai Building and the China Theater, located in Tianjin, China. They were selected as real examples to compare InSAR and leveling approaches for building deformation. Ten TerraSAR-X images spanning half a year were used in Permanent Scatterer InSAR processing. These extracted InSAR results were processed considering the diversity in both direction and spatial distribution, and were compared with true leveling values in both Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression and measurement of error analyses. The detailed experimental results for the Bohai Building and the China Theater showed a high correlation between InSAR results and the leveling values. At the same time, the two Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) indexes had values of approximately 1 mm. These analyses show that a millimeter level of accuracy can be achieved by means of InSAR technique when measuring building deformation. We discuss the differences in accuracy between OLS regression and measurement of error analyses, and compare the accuracy index of leveling in order to propose InSAR accuracy levels appropriate for monitoring buildings deformation. After assessing the advantages and limitations of InSAR techniques in monitoring buildings, further applications are evaluated

Woodland Extraction from High-Resolution CASMSAR Data Based on Dempster-Shafer Evidence Theory Fusion

Mapping and monitoring of woodland resources is necessary, since woodland is vital for the natural environment and human survival. The intent of this paper is to propose a fusion scheme for woodland extraction with different frequency (P- and X-band) polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) and interferometric SAR (InSAR) data. In the study area of Hanjietou, China, a supervised complex Wishart classifier based on the initial polarimetric feature analysis was first applied to the PolSAR data and achieved an overall accuracy of 88%. An unsupervised classification based on elevation threshold segmentation was then applied to the InSAR data, with an overall accuracy of 90%. After Dempster-Shafer (D-S) evidence theory fusion processing for the PolSAR and InSAR classification results, the overall accuracy of fusion result reached 95%. It was found the proposed fusion method facilitates the reduction of polarimetric and interferometric SAR classification errors, and is suitable for the extraction of large areas of land cover with a uniform texture and height. The woodland extraction accuracy of the study area was sufficiently high (producer’s accuracy of 96% and user’s accuracy of 96%) enough that the woodland map generated from the fusion result can meet the demands of forest resource mapping and monitoring