Thermal dilation monitoring of complex urban infrastructure using high resolution SAR data

Abstract

Monitoring the deformation of urban infrastructure is crucial for improving safety and reducing economic loss. Ground deformation (caused by construction, groundwater extraction etc.) can be measured with millimeter accuracy using advanced stacking techniques in differential SAR interferometry. However, deformation might also occur due to thermal dilation of complex urban objects such as buildings and bridges, resulting in structural stress and thus, a need for monitoring. High resolution SAR missions e.g. TerraSAR-X provide a unique opportunity to measure such small seasonal displacements. This paper investigates different techniques such as Persistent Scatterer Interferometry (PSI), Distributed Scatterer Interferometry (DSI), Stable Point Network (SPN) and Small Baseline Subset Algorithm (SBAS) for thermal dilation monitoring of complex urban infrastructure using Xband SAR data.