Ground-Based Synthetic Aperture Radar Data processing for Deformation Measurement

Sammanfattning: This thesis describes a first hands-on experience working with a Ground-Based Synthetic Aperture Radar (GB-SAR) at the Institute of Geomatics in Castelldefels (Barcelona, Spain), used to exploit radar interferometry usually employed on space borne platforms. We describe the key concepts of a GB-SAR as well as the data processing procedure to obtain deformation measurements. A large part of the thesis work have been devoted to development of GB-SAR processing tools such as coherence and interferogram generation, automating the co-registration process, geocoding of GB-SAR data and the adaption of existing satellite SAR tools to GB-SAR data. Finally a series of field campaigns have been conducted to test the instrument in different environments to collect data necessary to develop GB-SAR processing tools as well as to discover capabilities and limitations of the instrument.   The key outcome of the field campaigns is that high coherence necessary to conduct interferometric measurements can be obtained with a long temporal baseline. Several factors that affect the result are discussed, such as the reflectivity of the observed scene, the image co-registration and the illuminating geometry.