Conference Agenda
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Daily Overview |
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Geology Applications Location: Red Hall Session Chair: Marco Lavalle, NASA JPL Session Chair: Ake Rosenqvist, solo Earth Observation (soloEO) | |
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11:10am - 11:30am
Processing Strategies for BIOMASS Digital Terrain Model Retrieval 1: aresys, Italy; 2: Politecnico di Milano, Italy; 3: ISAE-Supaero/CEBSIO, France ESA’s BIOMASS launched in April 2025 is the first spaceborne P-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) ever, fully polarimetric (PolSAR), with primary objective of globally estimating forest properties and secondary goals among which the estimation of Digital Terrain Model (DTM) under vegetation. This can be done through multi-baseline InSAR processing of 3/7 acquisitions, depending on mission phase, separated by a 3-days lag [1]. Preliminary to forest products or DTM estimation, phase calibration of the multi-baseline interferometric (InSAR) stack is mandatory. The three main phase disturbances to be compensated are baseline errors, ionosphere and troposphere. BIOMASS InSAR calibration addresses the first two with a dedicated processing [2] and subsequently produces additional ground phases with the two-fold purpose of residual phase calibration and ground steering, i.e., setting height reference to terrain topography. This allows generating data stacks ready for tomographic (TomoSAR) processing and estimation of forest products. We discuss in this presentation the strategies devised for BIOMASS DTM retrieval, starting from ground phases. First, we review different approaches to retrieve ground phases (i.e., purely InSAR versus PolInSAR) and address precise topography locking with high-resolution spectral estimation methods [3]. To finally estimate DTM, topography must be separated from residual low-pass disturbances, corresponding mainly to troposphere (APS, i.e., Atmospheric Phase Screen in InSAR literature). Effective APS compensation is challenging in difficult environments such as dense forests, where volume scattering, water vapor variability and a limited number of acquisitions make difficult to resort to traditional InSAR approaches [4]. We discuss a data-driven InSAR APS correction strategy designed for BIOMASS, first removing stratified troposphere, then reconstructing full turbulent phase from open areas. We also assess the superior performance and independence of this approach with respect to external correction services [5], which is desirable for an operational BIOMASS algorithm. References [1] S. Quegan et al., “The European Space Agency BIOMASS mission: Measuring Forest above-ground biomass from space,” Remote Sensing of Environment, 2019 [2] S. Tebaldini, F. Salvaterra, F. Banda, and M. Pinheiro, “Multi-layer ionosphere correction in BIOMASS interferometry,” Submitted to POLINSAR 2026 [3] Salvaterra, Francesco; Ferro-Famil, Laurent; Banda, Francesco; Tebaldini, Stefano, “High-Resolution Techniques for Topography Estimation and Terrain Ground Steering within the ESA BIOMASS Processor”, submitted to POLINSAR 2026 [4] A. Ferretti, C. Prati, and F. Rocca, “Permanent scatterers in SAR interferometry,” IEEE Transactions on geoscience and remote sensing, 2002 [5] C. Yu, Z. Li, N. T. Penna, and P. Crippa, “Generic atmospheric correction model for interferometric synthetic aperture radar observations,” Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 2018 | |
