• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.21 no.9
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• pp.979-986
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• 2010

This paper presents an algorithm for retrieving precise radar cross sections(RCS) of various trihedral corner reflectors (TCR) which are external calibrators of synthetic aperture radar(SAR) systems. The theoretical RCSs of the TCRs are computed based on the physical optics(PO), geometrical optics(GO), and physical theory of diffraction(PTD) techniques; that is, the RCS computation includes the single reflections(PO), double reflections(GO-PO), triple reflections(GO-GO-PO), and edge diffractions(PTD) from the TCR. At first, we acquire an SAR image of the area that five TCRs installed in, and then extract the RCS of the TCRs. The RCSs of the TCRs are extracted accurately from the SAR image by adding up the power spill, which is generated due to the radar IRF(Impulse Response Function), using a square window. We compare the extracted RCSs with the theoretical RCSs and analyze the difference between the theoretical and experimental RCSs of the TCR for various window sizes and various backscattering coefficient levels of the adjacent area. Finally, we propose the minimum size of the integration area and the maximum level of the backscattering coefficients for the adjacent area.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.35 no.5_1
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• pp.737-750
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• 2019

Information of target changes in inaccessible areas is very important in terms of national security. Fast and accurate change detection of targets is very important to respond quickly. Spaceborne synthetic aperture radar can acquire images with high accuracy regardless of weather conditions and solar altitude. With the recent increase in the number of SAR satellites, it is possible to acquire images with less than one day temporal resolution for the same area. This advantage greatly increases the availability of change detection for inaccessible areas. Commonly available information in satellite SAR is amplitude and phase information, and change detection techniques have been developed based on each technology. Those are amplitude Change Detection (ACD), Coherence Change Detection (CCD). Each algorithm differs in the preprocessing process for accurate automatic classification technique according to the difference of information characteristics and the final detection result of each algorithm. Therefore, by analyzing the academic research trends for ACD and CCD, each technologies can be complemented. The goal of this paper is identifying current issues of SAR change detection techniques by collecting research papers. This study would help to find the prerequisites for SAR change detection and use it to conduct periodic detection research on inaccessible areas.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.34 no.6_4
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• pp.1489-1501
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• 2018

In 2016 Kumamoto, Japan, the foreshocks of $M_j$ 6.5 and 6.4, mainshock of $M_j$ 7.3 besides more than 2,000 aftershocks occurred in succession. Large surface deformation occurred due to this serial earthquakes and three-dimensional measurements of the deformation have been presented for the study of fault structures (Baek, 2017). The 3d measurements retrieved from two ascending pairs (20160211_20160602, 20151119_20160616) and a descending pair (20160307_20160418) acquired from ALOS PALSAR-2. In order to avoid mixing ionospheric error components on along-track surface deformation, the descending multiple-aperture interferogram, which do not contain the deformation of aftershocks after 20160418, was utilized. For these reason, there was a temporal discrepancy of about 2 months in extracting the north-south deformation. In this study, we applied a directional filter based ionospheric correction to ascending multiple-aperture interferograms, in order to reduce this discrepancy and understand more accurate fault movements. As a result of the ionospheric correction, an additional displacement signal was observed nearby fault lines. The root-mean-squared errors compared to GPS were about 9.87, 8.13 cm respectively. These results show improvements of 4.8 and 6.4 times after ionospheric correction. We expected that these along-track measurements would be used to decide more accurate movements of faults related to the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.38 no.6_3
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• pp.1761-1775
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• 2022

Due to unpredictable climate change, the frequency of occurrence of water-related disasters and the scale of damage are also continuously increasing. In terms of disaster management, it is essential to identify the damaged area in a wide area and monitor for mid-term and long-term forecasting. In the field of water disasters, research on remote sensing technology using Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite images for wide-area monitoring is being actively conducted. Time-series analysis for monitoring requires a complex preprocessing process that collects a large amount of images and considers the noisy radar characteristics, and for this, a considerable amount of time is required. With the recent development of cloud computing technology, many platforms capable of performing spatiotemporal analysis using satellite big data have been proposed. Google Earth Engine (GEE)is a representative platform that provides about 600 satellite data for free and enables semi real time space time analysis based on the analysis preparation data of satellite images. Therefore, in this study, immediate water disaster damage detection and mid to long term time series observation studies were conducted using GEE. Through the Otsu technique, which is mainly used for change detection, changes in river width and flood area due to river flooding were confirmed, centered on the torrential rains that occurred in 2020. In addition, in terms of disaster management, the change trend of the time series waterbody from 2018 to 2022 was confirmed. The short processing time through javascript based coding, and the strength of spatiotemporal analysis and result expression, are expected to enable use in the field of water disasters. In addition, it is expected that the field of application will be expanded through connection with various satellite bigdata in the future.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.21-27
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• 2010

This paper presents a numerical simulation of the radar backscattering from oil spills on ocean surface. At first, a one-dimensionally rough sea surface is numerically generated for a given wind speed at HEBEI SPIRIT accident. Then, an oil-spilled sea surface is represented with a two-layered medium, which is generated by adding a thin low-dielectric oil layer on the randomly-rough highdielectric sea surface. The backscattering coefficients of various oil-spilled sea surfaces are obtained using the Method of Moments and Monte Carlo technique for various surface roughness, oil-layer thicknesses, frequencies, polarizations and incidence angles. The numerical method is verified with theoretical models for simple structures. The reduction of the backscattering coefficients due to the lowdielectric oil-layers on sea surfaces has been analyzed. These numerical results will help to detect any oil spills on sea surfaces, and consequently, to classify SAR images.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2022.05a
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• pp.291-291
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• 2022

북한의 황강댐은 우리나라와 북한이 공유하고 있는 대표적인 하천인 임진강 상류에 존재하는 댐으로서 팔당댐의 약 1.5배의 규모를 가지고 있으며, 하류로의 발전방류와 함께 유역 외 지역인 예성강 지역으로 방류량의 일부를 도수시키며 이를 통해 예성강 1, 2호 발전소에서의 발전을 실시하고, 생활, 공업, 농업용수를 예성강 유역에 공급하는 것으로 파악된다. 2009년 9월 6일 임진강 상류 황강댐에서의 대규모 방류로 인해 경기도 연천군 일대에 홍수가 발생하였으며 이로 인한 인명 및 재산피해가 발생한 바 있다. 이에 우리나라에서는 임진강 하류에 군남홍수조절지를 설치하고 상류의 필승교 수위표를 이용하여 홍수경보체제를 운용하고 레이더 강우와 수문모형을 이용한 감시체계를 유지하고 있으나 황강댐 운영현황이 불확실함에 따라 정확한 예보가 어려운 실정이다. 본 연구에서 미계측 지역의 홍수예보를 위해 산정한 상당상수량이란 저수지의 현재 수위로부터 특정 수위까지 도달하는데 요구되는 강우량을 말하며 강우예보 시점에서 저수지의 최대 수위를 신속하게 파악할 수 있는 홍수예경보 수단이다. 미계측 유역인 임진강 상류 황강댐 유역의 상당강우량을 산정하기 위해 인공위성영상에서 획득한 댐 수위의 시계열 자료를 활용하여 간접적으로 보정된 황강댐 상류의 수문모형을 이용하였으며 현재 댐 수위로부터 주요 수위(방류개시수위, 상시만수위, 계획홍수위)에 도달하게 되는 상당강우량을 산정하였다.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.101-110
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• 2015

Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry (InSAR) is affected by various noise source such as atmospheric artifact, orbital error, processing noise etc.. Especially, one of the dominant noise source for long-wave SAR system, such as ALOS PALSAR (L-band SAR satellite) is the ionosphere effect because phase delays on radar pulse through the ionosphere are proportional to the radar wavelength. To avoid misinterpret of phase signal in the interferogram, it is necessary to detect and correct ionospheric errors. Recently, a MAI (Multipler Aperture SAR Interferometry) based ionospheric correction method has been proposed and considered one of the effective method to reduce phase errors by ionospheric effect. In this paper, we introduce the MAI-based method for ionospheric correction. Moreover we propose an efficient method that apply the method over non-coherent area using directional filter. Finally, we apply the proposed method to the ALOS PALSAR pairs, which include the west sea coast region in Korea. A polynomial fitting method, which is frequently adopted in InSAR processing, has been applied for the mitigation of phase distortion by the orbital error. However, the interferogram still has low frequency of Sin pattern along the azimuth direction. In contrast, after we applied the proposed method for ionospheric correction, the low frequency pattern is mitigated and the profile results has stable phase variation values within ${\pm}1rad$. Our results show that this method provides a promising way to correct orbital and ionospheric artifact and would be important technique to improve the accuracy and the availability for L-band or P-band systems.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.229-241
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• 2024

With the advancement of big data processing technology using cloud platforms, access, processing, and analysis of large-volume data such as satellite imagery have recently been significantly improved. In this study, the Change Detection Method, a relatively simple technique for retrieving soil moisture, was applied to the backscattering coefficient values of pre-processed Sentinel-1 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite imagery product based on Google Earth Engine (GEE), one of those platforms, to estimate the surface soil moisture for six observatories within the Yongdam Dam watershed in South Korea for the period of 2015 to 2023, as well as the watershed average. Subsequently, a correlation analysis was conducted between the estimated values and actual measurements, along with an examination of the applicability of GEE. The results revealed that the surface soil moisture estimated for small areas within the soil moisture observatories of the watershed exhibited low correlations ranging from 0.1 to 0.3 for both VH and VV polarizations, likely due to the inherent measurement accuracy of the SAR satellite imagery and variations in data characteristics. However, the surface soil moisture average, which was derived by extracting the average SAR backscattering coefficient values for the entire watershed area and applying moving averages to mitigate data uncertainties and variability, exhibited significantly improved results at the level of 0.5. The results obtained from estimating soil moisture using GEE demonstrate its utility despite limitations in directly conducting desired analyses due to preprocessed SAR data. However, the efficient processing of extensive satellite imagery data allows for the estimation and evaluation of soil moisture over broad ranges, such as long-term watershed averages. This highlights the effectiveness of GEE in handling vast satellite imagery datasets to assess soil moisture. Based on this, it is anticipated that GEE can be effectively utilized to assess long-term variations of soil moisture average in major dam watersheds, in conjunction with soil moisture observation data from various locations across the country in the future.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.423-441
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• 2013

On 21 September 2010, one of Chuseok holidays in Korea, localized heavy rainfalls occurred over the midwestern region of the Korean peninsula. In this study MTSAT-2 infrared and water vapor channel imagery are examined to find out some features which are obvious in each stage of the life cycle of convective cell for this heavy rain event. Also the kinematic and thermodynamic features probably associated with them are investigated. The first clouds related with the Chuseok heavy rain are detected as low-level multicell cloud (brightness temperature: $-15{\sim}0^{\circ}C$) in the middle of the Yellow sea at 1630~1900 UTC on 20 Sept., which are probably associated with the convergence at 1000 hPa. Convective cells are initiated in the vicinity of Shantung peninsula at 1933 UTC 20, which have developed around the edge of the dark region in water vapor images. At two times of 0033 and 0433 UTC 21 the merging of two convective cells happens near midwestern coast of the peninsula and then they have developed rapidly. From 0430 to 1000 UTC 21, key features of convective cell include repeated formation of secondary cell, slow horizontal cloud motion, persistence of lower brightness temperature ($-75{\sim}-65^{\circ}C$), and relatively small cloud size (${\leq}-50^{\circ}C$) of about $30,000km^2$. Radar analysis showed that this heavy rain is featured by a narrow line-shaped rainband with locally heavy rainrate (${\geq}50$ mm/hr), which is located in the south-western edge of the convective cell. However there are no distinct features in the associated synoptic-scale dynamic forcing. After 1000 UTC 21 the convective cell grows up quickly in cloud size and then is dissipated. These satellite features may be employed for very short range forecast and nowcasting of mesoscale heavy rain system.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.501-506
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• 2007

Basic research is conducted to identify a target using corner reflectors which are commonly used in calibration of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) systems. At first, an omni-directional reflector is fabricated by combining four 15-cm rectangular trihedral corner reflectors. Then, its radar cross section (RCS) characteristics are measured at C-band (5.3 GHz) for vv-, hh-, hv-, and vh- polarizations at a range of horizontal angle, $-90^{\circ}{\le}{\phi}{\le}90^{\circ}$. The measured RCS angular variation of the omni-directional reflector is much smaller for vv-polarization than other polarizations, and the difference between the maximum and minimum RCSs for vv-polarization is about 8 dB. Peak RCS values are shown at $0^{\circ}$ (normal to plates) and $45^{\circ}$ (direction of bore sight). It is shown that the measurements agree quite well with numerical simulation and theoretical computation results.