SIMULATION STUDIES OF SAR TOMOGRAPHY AT THE GLOBAL SCALE IN SUPPORT OF THREE-DIMENSIONAL VEGETATION STRUCTURE RETRIEVAL

Mapping the global three-dimensional vegetation structure aids researchers in accurately studying parameters such as above-ground biomass (AGB). Remote sensing using satellite platforms plays a crucial role in mapping the global vegetation structure and is a topic of active research. For this task, a group of satellite platforms having synthetic aperture radars (SAR) has the capability to provide high-quality data. The Distributed Aperture Radar Tomographic Sensors (DARTS) project’s primary goal is to map global and repeated imaging of three-dimensional vegetation structures using a single-pass tomographic SAR technique. A simulation package is developed as a part of this project to study the influence of radar parameters and the geometry of the scene under observation. For the global simulation studies, the global vegetation height and structure from the Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) data set are provided as inputs for the simulation. In this work the simulation architecture is discussed in detail. The simulation results obtained at the global scale for obtaining the three-dimensional vegetation structure are presented.