Multi-Frequency GBSAR Test Campaing, Castell de Subirats, Spain

At the end of May 2020, we resumed our activities to test the new multi-frequency GBSAR system, developed in a joint effort of Balamis and the Remote Sensing Laboratory of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, as the PhD of Adrià Amézaga under the aegis of the Industrial Doctorate Programs of the Generalitat de Catalunya and the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities.

This time, we tested the system performances for forest monitoring at X-, C- and L-band frequencies. The test area is located right next to the Castell de Subirats (Subirats Castle), in the outskirts of the Barcelona city.

The video below shows the three time-series of $|S_{vv}|$ images at X-, C- and L-band frequencies measured this day. It is interesting to observe the effects of data stability at lower frequencies, specially L-band, and how some rocky structures under the vegetation are only visible at this frequency.

Sentinel-1 InSAR Coherence for LandCover Mapping: A comparison of multiple feature-based classifiers

Jacob, A., Vicente-Guijalba, F., Lopez-Martinez, C., Lopez-Sanchez, J.M., Litzinger, M., Kristen, H., Mestre-Quereda, A., Ziolkowski, D., Lavalle, M., Notarnicola, C., Suresh, G., Antropov, O., Ge, S., Praks, J., Ban, Y., Pottier, E., Mallorqui, J., Duro, J. & Engdahl, M., “Sentinel-1 InSAR Coherence for LandCover Mapping: A comparison of multiple feature-based classifiers”, IEEE J. Sel. Topics Appl. Earth Observ. Remote Sens., vol. 13, pp. 535-552, 2020.

Summary

This work investigates and demonstrates the suitability of the Sentinel-1 interferometric coherence for land cover and vegetation mapping. In addition, this study analyses the performance of this feature along with polarisation and intensity products according to different classification strategies and algorithms. Seven different classification work flows were evaluated, covering pixel- and object-based analyses, unsupervised and supervised classification, different machine-learning classifiers, and the various effects of distinct input features in the SAR domain: interferometric coherence, backscattered intensities and polarisation. All classifications followed the Corine land cover nomenclature. Three different study areas in Europe were selected during 2015 and 2016 campaigns to maximise diversity land cover. Overall accuracies (OA), ranging from 70% to 90%, were achieved depending on study area and methodology, considering between 9 and 15 classes. The best results were achieved in the rather flat area of Doñana wetlands National Park in Spain (OA 90%), but even the challenging alpine terrain around the city of Merano in northern Italy (OA 77%), obtained also promising results. The overall potential of Sentinel-1 interferometric coherence for land cover mapping was evaluated as very good. In all cases, coherencebased results provided higher accuracies than intensity-based strategies, considering 12 days of temporal sampling of the Sentinels-1A stack. Both coherence and intensity prove to be complementary observables, increasing the overall accuracies in a combined strategy. The accuracy is expected to increase when Sentinel-1A/B stacks, i.e., 6-day sampling, are considered.

Large-Scale automatic vessel monitoring based on dual-polarization Sentinel-1 and AIS data

Pelich, R.; Chini, M.; Hostache, R.; Matgen, P.; Lopez-Martinez, C.; Nuevo, M.; Ries, P.; Eiden, G. “Large-Scale Automatic Vessel Monitoring Based on Dual-Polarization Sentinel-1 and AIS Data”. Remote Sens. 201911, 1078.

Summary

This research addresses the use of dual-polarimetric descriptors for automatic large-scale ship detection and characterization from synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data. Ship detection is usually performed independently on each polarization channel and the detection results are merged subsequently. In this study, we propose to make use of the complex coherence between the two polarization channels of Sentinel-1 and to perform vessel detection in this domain. Therefore, an automatic algorithm, based on the dual-polarization coherence, and applicable to entire large scale SAR scenes in a timely manner, is developed. Automatic identification system (AIS) data are used for an extensive and also large scale cross-comparison with the SAR-based detections. The comparative assessment allows us to evaluate the added-value of the dual-polarization complex coherence, with respect to SAR intensity images in ship detection, as well as the SAR detection performances depending on a vessel’s size. The proposed methodology is justified statistically and tested on Sentinel-1 data acquired over two different and contrasting, in terms of traffic conditions, areas: the English Channel the and Pacific coastline of Mexico. The results indicate a very high SAR detection rate, i.e., >80%, for vessels larger than 60 m and a decrease of detection rate up to 40% for smaller size vessels. In addition, the analysis highlights many SAR detections without corresponding AIS positions, indicating the complementarity of SAR with respect to cooperative sources for detecting dark vessels.

Towards a 20 m Global Building Map from Sentinel-1 SAR Data

Chini, M.; Pelich, R.; Hostache, R.; Matgen, P.; Lopez-Martinez, C. “Towards a 20 m Global Building Map from Sentinel-1 SAR Data”. Remote Sens. 201810, 1833.

Summary

This study introduces a technique for automatically mapping built-up areas using synthetic aperture radar (SAR) backscattering intensity and interferometric multi-temporal coherence generated from Sentinel-1 data in the framework of the Copernicus program. The underlying hypothesis is that, in SAR images, built-up areas exhibit very high backscattering values that are coherent in time. Several particular characteristics of the Sentinel-1 satellite mission are put to good use, such as its high revisit time, the availability of dual-polarized data, and its small orbital tube. The newly developed algorithm is based on an adaptive parametric thresholding that first identifies pixels with high backscattering values in both VV and VH polarimetric channels. The interferometric SAR coherence is then used to reduce false alarms. These are caused by land cover classes (other than buildings) that are characterized by high backscattering values that are not coherent in time (e.g., certain types of vegetated areas). The algorithm was tested on Sentinel-1 Interferometric Wide Swath data from five different test sites located in semiarid and arid regions in the Mediterranean region and Northern Africa. The resulting building maps were compared with the Global Urban Footprint (GUF) derived from the TerraSAR-X mission data and, on average, a 92% agreement was obtained.