A High Precision DEM Generation Method Based on Ascending and Descending Pass TerraSAR-X/TanDEM-X BiSAR Data

Abstract

A method for fine resolution and high precision Digital Elevation Model (DEM) generation using ascending and descending pass TerraSAR-X/TanDEM-X (TSX/TDX) datasets is proposed in this study. First, the NonLocal Interferometric SAR (NL-InSAR) can effectively generate ascending and descending pass raw DEMs. On this basis, the coherence well recovered by NL-InSAR is used to fusion the raw DEMs to further improve the accuracy and reduce the invalids caused by layover and shadows. This method was used to process the TSX/TDX data obtained in Beijing. The number of invalid points of DEM after fusion decreased significantly. Statistics result shows that it decreased from 4.93% in ascending raw DEM and 4.52% in descending raw DEM to 1.34% in the fusion DEM. At the same time, the accuracy of the fusion DEM increased by 9.6% compared to 6.67 m in the descending raw DEM and 8.7% compared to 6.74 m in the ascending raw DEM, reaching 6.09 m.