An Accurate Geocoding Method for GB-SAR Images Based on Solution Space Search and Its Application in Landslide Monitoring

Although ground-based synthetic aperture radar (GB-SAR) interferometry has a very high precision with respect to deformation monitoring, it is difficult to match the fan-shaped grid coordinates with the local topography in the geographical space because of the slant range projection imaging mode of the radar. To accurately identify the deformation target and its position, high-accuracy geocoding of the GB-SAR images must be performed to transform them from the two-dimensional plane coordinate system to the three-dimensional (3D) local coordinate system. To overcome difficulties of traditional methods with respect to the selection of control points in GB-SAR images in a complex scattering environment, a high-resolution digital surface model obtained by unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) aerial photogrammetry was used to establish a high-accuracy GB-SAR coordinate transformation model. An accurate GB-SAR image geocoding method based on solution space search was proposed. Based on this method, three modules are used for geocoding: framework for the unification of coordinate elements, transformation model, and solution space search of the minimum Euclidean distance. By applying this method to the Laoguanjingtai landslide monitoring experiment on Hailuogou Glacier, a subpixel geocoding accuracy was realized. The effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed method were verified by contrastive analysis and error assessment. The method proposed in this study can be applied for accurate 3D interpretation and analysis of the spatiotemporal characteristic in GB-SAR deformation monitoring and should be popularized.

Automated summary

This study proposes a method to establish a high-precision GB-SAR coordinate transformation model using a high-resolution digital surface model obtained by UAV aerial photogrammetry, solving the difficulty in selecting control points in GB-SAR images in complex scattering environments. An accurate GB-SAR image geocoding method based on solution space search is proposed, achieving subpixel geocoding accuracy.