Radar Calibration by Corner Reflectors with Mass-production Errors

The paper presents the statistical analysis of trihedral corner reflectors RCS in presence of mass production and installation errors. It is shown that the degradation of RCS from its nominal value can be modeled by Beta distribution. The derived probability density functions (PDF) of corner reflector RCS is further exploited to design an...

On the Efficacy of Compact Radar Transponders for InSAR Geodesy: Results of Multiyear Field Tests

Compact and low-cost radar transponders are an attractive alternative to corner reflectors (CRs) for interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) deformation monitoring, datum connection, and geodetic data integration. Recently, such transponders have become commercially available for C-band sensors, which poses relevant questions on...

Gecoris: An open-source toolbox for analyzing time series of corner reflectors in insar geodesy

Artificial radar reflectors, such as corner reflectors or transponders, are commonly used for radiometric and geometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) sensor calibration, SAR interferometry (InSAR) applications over areas with few natural coherent scatterers, and InSAR datum connection and geodetic integration. Despite the current abundance...

Estimating Signal-to-Clutter Ratio of InSAR Corner Reflectors From SAR Time Series

The estimation of Signal-to-Clutter Ratio (SCR) of a radar point target, such as a corner reflector, is an essential step for synthetic aperture radar (SAR) interferometry and positioning, as it influences the phase measurement variance as well as the absolute positioning precision. The standard method to estimate the SCR of a point target...

Performance analysis of conventional and next-generation artificial geodetic radar reflectors

The introduction of artificial reflectors in the areas to be imaged by a radar sensor facilitates interferometric analysis over regions of weak coherence between acquisitions. Traditionally, corner reflectors have been utilized; whose strong and stable scattering characteristics make them suitable for these purposes. Such reflectors also provide...

From Radar to Reality.Associating persistent scatterers to corresponding objects

Multi-epoch Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry (InSAR) is widely used to estimate displacements of selected scatterers from phase observations. However, their interpretation needs a connection to objects in the real world. <br/><br/>To associate InSAR scatterers to their corresponding geo-objects, it is necessary to (i) accurately estimate...

Optimizing the exploitation of persistent scatterers in satellite radar interferometry

Time-series synthetic aperture radar interferometry (InSAR) has evolved into a widely preferred geodetic technique for measuring topography and surface deformation of the earth. In the last decades, time-series InSAR methodologies were developed to extract information from persistent scatterers (PS) and distributed scatterers (DS). Methodologies...

On the value of corner reflectors and surface models in InSAR precise point positioning

To correctly interpret the estimated displacements in InSAR point clouds, especially in the built environment, these need to be linked to real-world structures. This requires the accurate and precise 3D positioning of each point. Artificial ground control points (GCPs), such as corner reflectors, serve this purpose, but since they require...

First analysis of C-band ECR transponders for InSAR geodesy

Well-identifiable reference benchmarks are important in SAR interferometry to enable linking between different measurement techniques, or to enable datum connection between the local InSAR datum and Terrestrial Reference Systems. As corner reflectors for C-band are rather large, weather sensitive, and difficult to maintain over time frames of...

Small Reflectors for Ground Motion Monitoring With InSAR

In recent years, synthetic aperture radar interferometry has become a recognized geodetic tool for observing ground motion. For monitoring areas with low density of coherent targets, artificial corner reflectors (CRs) are usually introduced. The required size of a reflector depends on radar wavelength and resolution and on the required...

Geodetic network design for InSAR: Application to ground deformation monitoring

For the past two decades, interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) has been used to monitor ground deformation with subcentimetric precision from space. But the applicability of this technique is limited in regions with a low density of naturally-occurring phase-coherent radar targets, e.g. vegetated nonurbanized areas. Third-party end...

Spaceborne Remote Sensing for Near Eastern Archaeology: A case study on archaeological site-detection in Jordan's Black Desert

The Black Desert in the east of Jordan has recently gained attention in the archaeological domain due to the discovery of pre-historical structures and a vast amount of rockart depictions. The Department of Near Eastern Archaeology of the University of Leiden has started investigating the cultural developments within this area from c. 1000 BC to...