• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.507-520
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• 2011

Conventional radar altimeter system measured directly the distance between the satellite and the ocean surface and frequently used by aircraft for approach and landing. The radar altimeter is good at flat surface like sea whereas it is difficult to determine precise three dimensional ground coordinates because the ground surface, unlike ocean, is very indented. To overcome this drawback of the radar altimeter, we have developed and validated the interferometric radar altimeter signal processing which is combined with new synthetic aperture and interferometric signal processing algorithm to extract precise three-dimensional ground coordinates. The proposed algorithm can accurately measure the three dimensional ground coordinates using three antennas. In a set of 70 simulations, the averages of errors in x, y and z directions were approximately -0.40 m, -0.02 m and 4.22 m, respectively and the RMSEs were about 3.40 m, 0.30 m and 6.20 m, respectively. The overall results represent that the proposed algorithm is effective for accurate three dimensional ground positioning.