Design of sar satellite heading angle for three dimension surface deformation estimation

The differential interferometric technique only measures deformation along the line of sight (LOS). More than three non-coplanar LOS deformation vectors are needed to retrieve the 3D deformation. To analyze the influence of orbit inclination and satellite heading angle on the three components of 3D deformation vector, a simplified imaging geometries is proposed by removing the impact of some negligible error and the mathematical expression of the mean square error of the 3D deformation retrieve is presented. Furthermore, the optimal heading angle of the ascending pass is derived to be +45°. For a convenience in fact, a concept called the acceptable optimization heading angle interval for the engineering design is put forward and the value of the interval is derived to be [-57.3, -32.7]∪[32.7, 57.3]. Monte Carlo simulations and simulations based on real space geometry relationship are presented to verify the theoretical analysis.