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Calibration and Validation of SAR Data and Derived Products

A special issue of Remote Sensing (ISSN 2072-4292). This special issue belongs to the section "Earth Observation Data".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 January 2025 | Viewed by 2888

Special Issue Editors


E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
European Space Agency, 00044 Frascati, Italy
Interests: SAR calibration and validation; SAR focusing; InSAR; SAR Tomography; Geophysical products retrieval

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
European Space Agency, 00044 Frascati, Italy
Interests: SAR calibration and validation; SAR focusing; InSAR; SAR Tomography; Geophysical products retrieval

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In the past decades, we have seen a continuous increase of SAR missions and sensors, and recently, we observed a growing tendency to move towards open and free distribution of SAR data and processors. Moreover, the high quality of the available datasets has promoted the uptake of SAR data and SAR derived geophysical products in various applications. This is expected to keep on expanding with the advent of new missions, operating at various frequency bands, and having new product families. All these stresses the importance of having sound calibration and validation approaches, reliable reference data, and multi-mission/multi-sensors inter-comparison exercises to ensure the quality and interoperability of the data. Finally, in order to fully profit from the growing collection of SAR data in a reliable manner, it is crucial to understand and track the uncertainties of the SAR measurements and their propagation into geophysical quantities.

This Special Issue aims at covering different aspects of calibration and validation of SAR data and derived geophysical products. Topics may cover anything from classical airborne and spaceborne calibration and validation methods to newly developed approaches profiting, e.g., from big data, Analysis Ready Data (ARD) and Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Articles may address, but are not limited to, one or more of the following topics:

  • Methods and algorithms for SAR calibration and validation
  • SAR calibration and validation metrics
  • Uncertainty propagation for SAR
  • Harmonized calibration procedures
  • Fiducial Reference Measurements (FRM) for SAR and derived products
  • Reference target networks and calibration databases
  • Reference target design
  • Calibration and validation campaigns
  • Multi-mission/Multi-sensor Inter-comparison exercises
  • Calibration and validation of Analysis Ready Data
  • Calibration and validation of SAR derived geophysical parameters

Dr. Muriel Pinheiro
Dr. Clément Albinet
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Remote Sensing is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Dr. Muriel Pinheiro
Dr. Clément Albinet
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Remote Sensing is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • SAR
  • calibration and validation
  • FRM
  • reference targets
  • reference databases
  • quality monitoring
  • inter-comparison

Published Papers (2 papers)

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35 pages, 15218 KiB  
Article
An Advanced Quality Assessment and Monitoring of ESA Sentinel-1 SAR Products via the CyCLOPS Infrastructure in the Southeastern Mediterranean Region
by Dimitris Kakoullis, Kyriaki Fotiou, Nerea Ibarrola Subiza, Ramon Brcic, Michael Eineder and Chris Danezis
Remote Sens. 2024, 16(10), 1696; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs16101696 - 10 May 2024
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Abstract
The Cyprus Continuously Operating Natural Hazards Monitoring and Prevention System, abbreviated CyCLOPS, is a national strategic research infrastructure devoted to systematically studying geohazards in Cyprus and the Eastern Mediterranean, Middle East, and North Africa (EMMENA) region. Amongst others, CyCLOPS comprises six permanent sites, [...] Read more.
The Cyprus Continuously Operating Natural Hazards Monitoring and Prevention System, abbreviated CyCLOPS, is a national strategic research infrastructure devoted to systematically studying geohazards in Cyprus and the Eastern Mediterranean, Middle East, and North Africa (EMMENA) region. Amongst others, CyCLOPS comprises six permanent sites, each housing a Tier-1 GNSS reference station co-located with two calibration-grade corner reflectors (CRs). The latter are strategically positioned to account for both the ascending and descending tracks of SAR satellite missions, including the ESA’s Sentinel-1. As of June 2021, CyCLOPS has reached full operational capacity and plays a crucial role in monitoring the geodynamic regime within the southeastern Mediterranean area. Additionally, it actively tracks landslides occurring in the western part of Cyprus. Although CyCLOPS primarily concentrates on geohazard monitoring, its infrastructure is also configured to facilitate the radiometric calibration and geometric validation of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery. Consequently, this study evaluates the performance of Sentinel-1A SAR by exploiting the CyCLOPS network to determine key parameters including spatial resolution, sidelobe levels, Radar Cross-Section (RCS), Signal-to-Clutter Ratio (SCR), phase stability, and localization accuracy, through Point Target Analysis (PTA). The findings reveal the effectiveness of the CyCLOPS infrastructure to maintain high-quality radiometric parameters in SAR imagery, with consistent spatial resolution, controlled sidelobe levels, and reliable RCS and SCR values that closely adhere to theoretical expectations. With over two years of operational data, these findings enhance the understanding of Sentinel-1 SAR product quality and affirm CyCLOPS infrastructure’s reliability. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Calibration and Validation of SAR Data and Derived Products)
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15 pages, 3942 KiB  
Technical Note
GPU Acceleration for SAR Satellite Image Ortho-Rectification
by Lei Dong, Tingtao Zhang, Fangjian Liu, Rui Liu and Hongjian You
Remote Sens. 2024, 16(7), 1301; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs16071301 - 7 Apr 2024
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 973
Abstract
Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite image ortho-rectification requires pixel-level calculations, which are time-consuming. Moreover, for SAR images with large overlapping areas, the processing time for ortho-rectification increases linearly, significantly reducing the efficiency of SAR satellite image mosaic. This paper thoroughly analyzes two geometric [...] Read more.
Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite image ortho-rectification requires pixel-level calculations, which are time-consuming. Moreover, for SAR images with large overlapping areas, the processing time for ortho-rectification increases linearly, significantly reducing the efficiency of SAR satellite image mosaic. This paper thoroughly analyzes two geometric positioning models for SAR images. In order to address the high computation time of pixel-by-pixel ortho-rectification in SAR satellite images, a GPU-accelerated pixel-by-pixel correction method based on a rational polynomial coefficients (RPCs) model is proposed, which improves the efficiency of SAR satellite image ortho-rectification. Furthermore, in order to solve the problem of linearly increasing processing time for the ortho-rectification of multiple SAR images in large overlapping areas, a multi-GPU collaborative acceleration strategy for the ortho-rectification of multiple SAR images in large overlapping areas is proposed, achieving efficient ortho-rectification processing of multiple SAR image data in large overlapping areas. By conducting ortho-rectification experiments on 20 high-resolution SAR images from the Gaofen-3 satellite, the feasibility and efficiency of the multi-GPU collaborative acceleration processing algorithm are verified. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Calibration and Validation of SAR Data and Derived Products)
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