GNSS and InSAR data are integrated to extract the 3-D surface deformations, which are of great significance for studying geological hazards. In this study, two major problems are focused on integration. For one thing, we propose an Iterated Almost Unbiased Estimation (IAUE) method to estimate the variance components of GNSS and InSAR for the case where the estimation of variance components of multi-source data by traditional variance component estimation (VCE) methods may be negative and inaccurate. For another, considering that heterogeneous data errors may lead to unstable three-dimensional solutions, we propose adding the Laplacian smoothness constraint (LSC) to the function model, which can smooth the solutions by minimizing the second derivative of the displacements. These two methods are abbreviated as IAUE-LSC. In the simulation experiment, the performance of traditional Helmert variance component estimation (HVCE) is first compared with IAUE. IAUE can not only converge more quickly but also avoid negative variances. Furthermore, we find that the excessively large relative error ratio between GNSS and InSAR is an essential factor leading to the instability of the three-dimensional solutions. IAUE-LSC method is immune to this instability and can obtain more stable results. In addition, the 2018 Hawaii case demonstrates that IAUE achieves improvements of 2.58 cm, 2.77 cm, and 7.69 cm in the east, north, and up directions relative to the traditional weighted least squares (WLS) method. While the combined IAUE-LSC achieve improvements of 2.29 cm, 0.32 cm, and 1.68 cm compared to the IAUE alone.

This paper presents an analysis of measurements of the normalized radar cross-(NRCS) in Wave Mode for Chinese C-band Gaofen-3(GF-3) synthetic aperture radar (SAR). Based on 2779 images from GF-3 quad-polarization SAR in Wave Mode and collocated wind vectors from ERA-Interim, this experiment verifies the feasibility of using ocean surface wind fields and VV-polarized NRCS to perform normalized calibration. The method uses well-validated empirical C-band geophysical model function (CMOD4) to estimate the calibration constant for each beam. In addition, the relationship between cross-pol NRCS and wind vectors is discussed. The cross-pol NRCS increases linearly with wind speed and it is obviously modulated by the wind direction when the wind speed is greater than 8 m/s. Furthermore, the properties of the polarization ratio, denoted PR, are also investigated. The PR is dependent on incidence angle and azimuth angle. Two empirical models of the PR are fitted, one as a function of incidence angle only, the other with additional dependence on azimuth angle. Assessments show that the ${\mathsf{\sigma }}_{\mathrm{VV}}^0$ retrieved from new PR models as well as ${\mathsf{\sigma }}_{\mathrm{HH}}^0$ is in good agreement with ${\mathsf{\sigma }}_{\mathrm{VV}}^0$ extracted from SAR images directly.

The radiometric calibration technique of spaceborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) aims to establish a constant relationship between the SAR target pulse response energy and the actual radar cross-section (RCS) of the ground. It is an essential technology for achieving quantitative observations of the Earth using radar. In this article, the process of in-orbit radiometric calibration campaign for the SuperView Neo-2 SAR satellite is introduced, which is the distributed X-band SAR satellite in the new generation of Chinese SiWei commercial remote sensing satellite system. More specifically, the initial step involves deriving the total transfer function of the SAR system using the radar equation and establishing a stable calibration constant model for the SAR system. Further, by using the obtained calibration constant to invert the RCS value of the corner reflectors in the Otog Banner calibration field, while validating and analyzing the absolute radiometric accuracy. Considering that the elevation antenna pattern (EAP) predominantly affects the consistency of image radiometric correction, the method of extracting EAP and beam center bias angle from the rainforest is presented. Finally, the quality validation of impulse response function (IRF) is performed over the California calibration field, which can effectively guarantee the quality of SuperView Neo-2 SAR satellite products.

Range ambiguity is one of the factors which affect the SAR image quality. Alternately transmitting up and down chirp modulation pulses is one of the methods used to suppress the range ambiguity. However, the defocusing range ambiguous signal can still hold the stronger backscattering intensity than the mainlobe imaging area in some case, which has a severe impact on visual effects and subsequent applications. In this paper, a novel hybrid range ambiguity suppression method for up and down chirp modulation is proposed. The method can obtain the ambiguity area image and reduce the ambiguity signal power appropriately, by applying pulse compression using a contrary modulation rate and CFAR detecting method. The effectiveness and correctness of the approach is demonstrated by processing the archive images acquired by Chinese Gaofen-3 SAR sensor in full-polarization mode.

The construction of large-scale hydropower stations could solve the problem of China’s power and energy shortages. However, the construction of hydropower stations requires reservoir water storage. Artificially raising the water level by several tens of meters or even hundreds of meters will undoubtedly change the hydrogeological conditions of an area, which will lead to surface deformation near the reservoir. In this paper, we first used SBAS-InSAR technology to monitor the surface deformation near the Xiluodu reservoir area for various data and analyzed the surface deformation of the Xiluodu reservoir area from 2014 to 2019. By using the 12 ALOS2 ascending data, the 100 Sentinel-1 ascending data, and the 97 Sentinel-1 descending data, the horizontal and vertical deformations of the Xiluodu reservoir area were obtained. We found that the Xiluodu reservoir area is mainly deformed along the vertical shore, with a maximum deformation rate of 250 mm/a, accompanied by vertical deformation, and the maximum deformation rate is 60 mm/a. Furthermore, by analyzing the relationship between the horizontal deformation sequence, the vertical deformation sequence, and the impoundment, we found the following: (1) Since the commencement of Xiluodu water storage, the vertical shore direction displacement has continued to increase, indicating that the deformation caused by the water storage is not due to the elastic displacement caused by the load, but by irreversible shaping displacement. According to its development trend, we speculate that the vertical shore direction displacement will continue to increase until it eventually stabilizes; (2) Vertical displacement increases rapidly in the initial stage of water storage; after two water-storage cycles, absolute settlement begins to slow down in the vertical direction, but its deformation still changes with the change in the storage period.

The paper proposes a new method for measuring the azimuth pointing of spaceborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) antenna beams based on the ground receiver, which can receive and record complex sampling data of the pulse signals transmitted from the spaceborne SAR. The center of the antenna pattern is extracted from the complex sampling data amplitude envelope to obtain the time when the beam main lobe center irradiates the ground receiver, and the range migration information is extracted from the complex sampling data to obtain the time when the satellite is over the top of the ground receiver. The results of Chinese civilian remote sensing GaoFen-3 SAR satellite experiment data processing show that the measurement accuracy of this method is better than 0.002°, which can be applied to the accurate measurement of azimuth pointing of various low Earth orbit (LEO) SAR antenna beams.