Height estimation on wideband synthetic aperture sonar: experimental results from InSAS -2000

This paper presents an improved method of performing relative height estimation using sidescan sonar images collected from two vertically separated receiver arrays. Delay estimation on image sub-swaths by utilising the phase of the complex cross-correlation function is described. We suggest to beamform the images in ground range to reduce baseline decorrelation and footprint shift effect. The authors have also developed a new geometrical description for the height estimation. The improved height estimation technique is tested on experimental data from a wideband interferometric synthetic aperture sonar, operated in a rail experiment at Elba Island, Italy.