Estimation of Residual Motion Errors in Airborne SAR Interferometry Based on Time-Domain Backprojection and Multisquint Techniques

For airborne repeat-pass synthetic aperture radar interferometry (InSAR), precise trajectory information is needed to compensate for deviations of the platform movement from a linear track. Using the trajectory information, motion compensation (MoCo) can be implemented within SAR data focusing. Due to the inaccuracy of current navigation systems, residual motion errors (RMEs) exist between the real and measured trajectory, causing phase undulations in the final interferograms. Up to now, MoCo and RME estimation have usually been combined in airborne InSAR to estimate ground deformation. Conventional MoCo methods generally involve azimuthal and range resampling and phase correction. Then frequency-domain focusing techniques can be used to generate the SAR images. After focusing SAR images with MoCo, both multisquint and autofocus approaches can be used to estimate RME. In addition to the MoCo-based frequency-domain focusing, the time-domain backprojection (BP) technique can also focus the SAR data obtained from highly nonlinear platform trajectories. In this paper, we present, for the first time, the combination of BP and multisquint techniques for RME estimation. A detailed derivation of the implementation of the multisquint approach using the BP-focusing images is presented. Repeat-pass data from the SlimSAR system over Slumgullion landslide are used to demonstrate the feasibility of RME estimation for both stationary and nonstationary scenes. We conclude that the proposed method can effectively remove the RME.