Spaceborne Bistatic Radargrammetry: a robust method for DEM generation

Abstract:
Spaceborne radargrammetry is not a new area of research, however the idea to utilize bistatic SARs, orbiting on separated satellites, is calling attention of the scientific and technical community about this field of study. Indeed, during recent years important studies were dedicated to analysis, definition and control of spaceborne remote sensing missions based on two Synthetic Aperture Radars embarked on two separated platforms characterized by very large baselines, ranging from tens to hundreds of kilometres. In this way monostatic and bistatic data are gathered under different viewing angles thus allowing stereo effect to be properly exploited. The key scope of this paper is to propose an evolution of classic stereo-radargrammetric techniques to the bistatic spaceborne geometry and to asses the main parameters affecting the height measurement accuracy of the derived Digital Elevation Model (DEM).