Design of the DEM Mosaicking and Calibration Processor for TanDEM-X

The primary goal of the TanDEM-X mission is the derivation of a high-precision global Digital Elevation Model (DEM) according to HRTI level 3 accuracy. This paper focuses on the generation of the global DEM from previously processed interferometric "Raw DEMs". The system involved, the DEM Mosaicking and Calibration Processor (MCP), estimates remaining offsets and tilts by a new region-wide block adjustment for thousands of Raw DEMs. Furthermore, it enables the fusion of the Raw DEMs into a quality-controlled global DEM product that is presented at the end of this paper.