Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing

C.E. Wivell, C. Olmsted, D.R. Steinwand, and C.C. Taylor, "An Earth Remote Sensing Satellite--1 Synthetic Aperture Radar Mosaic of the Tanana River Basin in Alaska," Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing, vol. 59, no. 4, April 1993, pp. 527-528.

Abstract

Because the pixel location in a line of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) image data is directly related to the distance the pixel is from the radar, terrain elevations cause large displacement errors in the geo-referenced location of the pixel. This is especially true for radar systems with small angles between the nadir and look vectors. Thus, to geo-register a SAR image accurately, the terrain of the area must be taken into account. (Curlander et al., 1987; Kwok et al., 1987; Schreier et al., 1990; Wivell et al., 1992). As a part of the 1992 National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Earth Observing System Version 0 activities, a prototype SAR geocoding and terrain correction system was developed at the U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS) EROS Data Center (EDC) in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Using this system with 3-arc-second digital elevation models (DEMS) mosaicked at the EDC Alaska Field Office, 21 ERS-1 SAR scenes acquired at the Alaska SAR Facility were automatically geocoded, terrain corrected, and mosaicked. The geo-registered scenes were mosaicked using a simple concatenation.

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