Building Height Retrieval From Airborne VHR SAR Imagery Based On An Iterative Simulation And Matching Procedure

摘要

The new spaceborne very high resolution (VHR) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) sensors onboard the TerraSAR-X and COSMO-SkyMED satellites have a spatial resolution of up to 1 meter. In VHR SAR data, features fromindividual urban structures (like buildings) can be identified in their characteristic settings in urban settlementpatterns. In this paper, we present a novel methodology for the height estimation for generic man made structuresfrom single power SAR data. The proposed approach is based on the definition of a hypothesis on the heightof the building and on the simulation of a SAR image for testing that hypothesis. Then a matching procedureis applied between the estimated and the actual SAR images in order to validate the height assumption. Theprocess is iterated for different initial height assumptions until the matching function is satisfied and thus thebuilding height is estimated. The efficiency and the properties of the proposed method are demonstrated for theheight estimation of a set of 38 flat- and gable roof buildings using a VHR airborne SAR scene for a residentialarea in Dorsten, Germany.