Inversion of Terrain Slope and Roughness with Satellite Laser Altimeter Full-Waveform Data Assisted by Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission

Slope and roughness are basic geophysical properties of terrain surface, also sources error in satellite laser altimetry systems. The full-waveform altimeter records the complete echo waveform backscattered from target surface worldwide, so it may be used for both range measurement inversion analysis geometric parameters surface. This paper proposes a new method slope bare or near-bare within footprint using data, Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission (SRTM) topographic prior knowledge. To solve non-uniqueness solution to problem, this SRTM airborne Light Detection Ranging (LiDAR) data North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, establish priori hypothesis about real information parameters. Then, under constraints hypothesis, theoretical formulas rules pulse-width broadening knowledge were developed. Finally, based on Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS) that was borne ICE, Cloud, Land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) West Valley City, Utah Jackson Wyoming, United States America, carried out. experiment compares results proposed with those existing ones evaluates high precision information, which indicates our is superior state-of-the-art methods, accuracy 0.667° (Mean Absolute Error, MAE) 1.054° (Root Mean Square RMSE), 0.171 m (MAE) 0.250 (RMSE).