Traffic monitoring with spaceborne SAR - Theory, simulations, and experiments

This paper reviews the theoretical background for upcoming dual-channel radar satellite missions to monitor traffic from space and exemplifies the potentials and limitations by real data. In general, objects that move during the illumination time of the radar will be imaged differently than stationary objects. If the assumptions incorporated in the focusing process of the synthetic aperture radar (SAR) principle are not met, a moving object will appear both displaced and blurred. To study the impact of these (and related) distortions in focused SAR images, the analytic relations between an arbitrarily moving point scatterer and its conjugate in the SAR image have been reviewed and adapted to dual-channel satellite specifications. Furthermore, a specific detection scheme is proposed that integrates complementary detection and velocity estimation algorithms with knowledge derived from external sources as, e.g., road databases. Results using real SAR data are presented to validate the theory.

[1]  Shen Chiu,et al.  A comparison of displaced phase centre antenna and along-track interferometry techniques for RADARSAT-2 ground moving target indication , 2005 .

[2]  Stefan Hinz,et al.  Fast and subpixel precise blob detection and attribution , 2005, IEEE International Conference on Image Processing 2005.

[3]  Franz J. Meyer,et al.  Development of a GMTI Processing System for the Extraction of Traffic Information from TerraSAR-X Data , 2006 .

[4]  M. J. Collins,et al.  SIMULATION OF SAR SIGNALS FROM MOVING VEHICLES ( FOCUSING ACCELERATING GROUND MOVING TARGETS ) , 2004 .

[5]  R. Bamler,et al.  SAR Data Acquisition and Image Formation , 1993 .

[6]  Uwe Stilla,et al.  AUTOMATIC VEHICLE DETECTION IN SPACE IMAGES SUPPORTED BY DIGITAL MAP DATA , 2005 .

[7]  N. Hamano,et al.  Digital processing of synthetic aperture radar data , 1984 .

[8]  F. Ulaby,et al.  Handbook of radar scattering statistics for terrain , 1989 .

[9]  Richard Klemm,et al.  Space-time adaptive processing , 1998 .

[10]  A. Beaudoin,et al.  An airborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) experiment to support RADARSAT-2 ground moving target indication (GMTI) , 2002 .

[11]  P. Lacomme,et al.  Synthetic Aperture Radar , 2001 .

[12]  Richard Bamler,et al.  Performance Analysis of the TerraSAR-X Traffic Monitoring Concept , 2006 .

[13]  C. Gierull,et al.  Compensating the effects of target acceleration in dual-channel SAR-GMTI , 2006 .

[14]  Christoph H. Gierull,et al.  Statistical analysis of multilook SAR interferograms for CFAR detection of ground moving targets , 2004, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.

[15]  Jong-Sen Lee,et al.  Intensity and phase statistics of multilook polarimetric and interferometric SAR imagery , 1994, IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote. Sens..

[16]  Michael Eineder,et al.  Traffic monitoring using SRTM along-track interferometry , 2003, IGARSS 2003. 2003 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium. Proceedings (IEEE Cat. No.03CH37477).

[17]  Franz J. Meyer,et al.  The feasibility of traffic monitoring with TerraSAR-X - analyses and consequences , 2004, IGARSS 2004. 2004 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium.

[18]  Donald B. Percival,et al.  Probability density functions for multilook polarimetric signatures , 1994, IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote. Sens..

[19]  I. Sikaneta,et al.  TWO-CHANNEL SAR GROUND MOVING TARGET INDICATION FOR TRAFFIC MONITORING IN URBAN TERRAIN , 2005 .

[20]  Christoph H. Glerull.  Moving Target Detection with Along-Track SAR Interferometry. A Theoretical Analysis , 2002 .

[21]  Ulrich Steinbrecher,et al.  Traffic monitoring with TerraSAR-X , 2005 .

[22]  C. Gierull.  Statistics of SAR Interferograms with Application to Moving Target Detection , 2001 .

[23]  Uwe Stilla,et al.  Detection of vehicle queues in Quickbird imagery of city areas , 2006 .