News and Resources

Airborne SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) calibration refers to the calibration of various parameters of an airborne SAR system using specific methods to eliminate systematic and environmental errors, thereby ensuring the quality of SAR images, positioning accuracy, and the accuracy of inversion parameters. Airborne SAR calibration is mainly divided into three categories: geometric calibration, radiometric calibration, and polarimetric calibration.

With the development of the power industry, the safety and stability of transmission towers are of paramount importance for power transmission. Currently, most methods such as manual line inspection, helicopter line inspection, and aerial digital photography line inspection are used to ensure the safety of transmission lines. However, many transmission towers are located in mountainous areas, and these methods have unavoidable drawbacks. Synthetic aperture radar, on the other hand, has advantages such as high monitoring accuracy, wide monitoring range, and all-weather operation, which can meet the needs of monitoring settlement and deformation of power facilities, transmission channels and infrastructure, as well as environmental monitoring of transmission lines.

Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry (InSAR) technology, with its all-weather, 24/7 capability and high sensitivity to surface deformation, has become an important tool for geological hazard monitoring, ground subsidence investigation, and infrastructure health diagnosis. Integrating InSAR technology onto unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) platforms further overcomes the limitations of long satellite revisit cycles, insufficient maneuverability, and high costs associated with manned operations, providing a new approach for regional, high-frequency, and high-precision deformation monitoring. However, the small size and susceptibility of UAV platforms to airflow disturbances make it difficult to maintain consistent flight paths during repeated flights, posing a significant challenge to double-track interferometry processing.

Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), as an active microwave remote sensing system, can actively transmit microwaves and receive echoes reflected from targets, unaffected by lighting or weather conditions, enabling rapid imaging in all weather conditions and at all times. When SAR technology is deeply integrated with UAV platforms, it overcomes many limitations of traditional satellite and manned aircraft SAR in terms of timeliness, flexibility, and cost.

With the accelerated development of China's low-altitude economy, drone-based low-altitude operations are rapidly evolving towards lightweight, long-endurance, all-weather, and high-precision technologies. Small vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) fixed-wing drones, with their advantages of flexible deployment, high operational efficiency, and wide applicability, are gradually replacing traditional manual inspections and outdated aerial photography methods. They are widely used in remote sensing mapping, power grid maintenance, marine monitoring, geological security, and many other fields, becoming the core operational carrier of the low-altitude digital economy.

This project mainly involves the Xiamen Earthquake Bureau to monitor the deformation of active fault cracks. The Tianjing Yunhu C-band airborne SAR radar equipment will be used to conduct multiple orbit interferometry (D-InSAR) observations on a mountainous section of a fault zone in Xiamen.