Deformation Monitoring of Slopes With a Shipborne InSAR System: A Case Study of the Lancang River Gorge

Differential synthetic aperture radar interferometry (DInSAR) is a remote sensing technique to monitor ground deformation using repeat-pass data and suitable processing methods. Different platforms have been used to acquire DInSAR data such as space-borne, air-borne, car-mounted, and ground-based SAR systems. Space-borne SAR systems are relatively mature, but air-borne and other systems have attracted increasing interest of the remote sensing community due to their operational flexibility and observation capabilities. In this paper, a new InSAR platform is proposed for the deformation monitoring of reservoir slopes. The shipborne InSAR system uses frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) technology with one-transmit-dual-receive configuration. First, we describe the data acquisition process at the Lancang River Bank in October 2019. Subsequently, we present the imaging and interferometric capabilities of the new shipborne InSAR system. Moreover, we analyze the acquired radar data and present an assessment of the quality of the single look complex (SLC) SAR imagery and interferometric products. We focus on the influence of platform stability and baseline bias. Finally, we compare the calculated deformation with the measured deformation obtained from corner reflectors deployed in the monitored area. A line-of-sight error within 2cm is obtained. This paper proposes a novel solution for deformation monitoring of reservoir slopes and a new approach for InSAR applications.

Automated summary

This paper introduces a new shipborne InSAR system for deformation monitoring of reservoir slopes, using FMCW technology. The data acquisition process at the Lancang River Bank in October 2019 is described, along with the imaging and interferometric capabilities of the new system. The calculated deformation is compared with measured deformation from corner reflectors, resulting in a line-of-sight error within 2cm.