Simulation-Based Signature Analysis of Fuel Storage Tanks in High-Resolution SAR Images

Many synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image exploitation tasks rely on the presence of certain features in the SAR images to be investigated. SAR simulation is an important tool to study such signatures for a wide range of aspect and incidence angles, for which usually real data cannot be provided. Furthermore, SAR simulation offers the opportunity to change the 3-D model so that many features can be traced back directly to features in the underlying 3-D scene. In this letter, the second approach is used to investigate the SAR signature of oil tanks with fixed and floating roofs. The knowledge gained by SAR simulation is then used to estimate the height of both types of tanks and the filling height of floating roof tanks.