Recent Developments and Applications of Multi-Pass Airborne Interferometric SAR using the E-SAR System

Abstract:
Airborne SAR systems are traditionally considered to be a suitable testbed for the demonstration of new Earth observation data acquisition techniques and for the development of new applications based on the acquired multi parameter data sets. Spaceborne SAR system concepts and mission design is based on the experience gathered from these airborne SAR experiments and from dedicated campaigns. DLR's E-SAR system is supporting these activities since the late 1980-ties by providing high resolution multi-frequency and multi-polarisation data sets to a large user community. Triggered by the scientific needs and also by the recent advancements in motion compensation techniques several new operating modes are now available for the E-SAR system on a quasi-operational basis. This paper gives an overview of these techniques and presents novel application examples.