Multi-mode SAR Interferometry Processing Research and Implementation

Current operation mode of SAR can be roughly divided into two types: strip-map mode and burst mode. The most conventional mode is strip-map mode, in which the swath width is quite limited. The other type is burst mode, which is an active option to overcome this limitation by cyclically scanning several subswaths, known as ScanSAR. In addition, Envisat ASAR has another type of burst mode, that is, Alternating Polarization mode. ALOS PALSAR and Radarsat-1 also have their own ScanSAR operation modes, but each of them is distinctive from the others in implementation. Numerous theoretical results and applications of interferometry using strip-map data have been published before. Interferometry with burst mode data, however, is much rarer and different from the case of the traditional strip-map mode from raw data focusing to interferogram generation because of its burst nature of data acquisition pattern. In our study, we put our emphasis on each kind of burst mode interferometry and mixed mode interferometry. Until now, our successful research work includes Envisat ASAR WS-WS, IM-WS and ALOS PALSAR WB1-WB1 Interferometry. Other development activities including Envisat AP-AP and Radarsat-1 SNA-SNA interferometry are still on going. In the following paper, we will present our results and give an overview of multi-mode SAR interferometry for the present spaceborne SAR sensors.