• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
• /
• v.11 no.7
• /
• pp.1258-1270
• /
• 2000

A synthetic aperture radar (SAR) system is able to provide all-weather, day-and-night, high resolution imaging capability in the wide area of interest, and thus is extremely useful in surveillance for both civil and military applications. In this paper, the X-band high-resolution spaceborne SAR system design is described with the key design parameters for the mission and system requirement characterized by the small satellite platform. The SAR imaging mode design technique is presented, and the standard imaging mode design results are analyzed with respect to image quality performance. In line with the system requirement, X-band SAR payload and ground reception/processing subsystems are designed and the key design results are demonstrated with the outstanding performance characteristics. The designed small satellite SAR system shows the wide range of imaging capability, and proves to be an effective surveillance systems in the light weight, high performance and cost-effective points of view.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
• /
• v.61 no.5
• /
• pp.89-99
• /
• 2019

In this study, we estimated the spatially-distributed soil moisture at the high resolution ($10m{\times}10m$) using the satellite-based Sentinel-1A/B SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) sensor images. The Sentinel-1A/B raw data were pre-processed using the SNAP (Sentinel Application Platform) tool provided from ESA (European Space Agency), and then the pre-processed data were converted to the backscatter coefficients. The regression equations were derived based on the relationships between the TDR (Time Domain Reflectometry)-based soil moisture measurements and the converted backscatter coefficients. The TDR measurements from the 51 RDA (Rural Development Administration) monitoring sites were used to derive the regression equations. Then, the soil moisture values were estimated using the derived regression equations with the input data of Sentinel-1A/B based backscatter coefficients. Overall, the soil moisture estimates showed the linear trends compared to the TDR measurements with the high Pearson's correlations (more than 0.7). The Sentinel-1A/B based soil moisture values matched well with the TDR measurements with various land surface conditions (bare soil, crop, forest, and urban), especially for bare soil (R: 0.885~0.910 and RMSE: 3.162~4.609). However, the Mandae-ri (forest) and Taean-eup (urban) sites showed the negative correlations with the TDR measurements. These uncertainties might be due to limitations of soil surface penetration depths of SAR sensors and complicated land surface conditions (artificial constructions near the TDR site) at urban regions. These results may infer that qualities of Sentinel-1A/B based soil moisture products are dependent on land surface conditions. Although uncertainties exist, the Sentinel-1A/B based high-resolution soil moisture products could be useful in various areas (hydrology, agriculture, drought, flood, wild fire, etc.).

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
• /
• 2001.09a
• /
• pp.117-120
• /
• 2001

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is a promising active remote sensing technique to obtain large terrain information of the earth in all-weather conditions. SAR is useful in many applications, including terrain mapping and geographic information system (GIS), which use SAR display images. Usually, these applications need the enormous data storage because they deal with wide terrain images with high resolution. So, compression technique is a useful approach to deal with SAR display images with limited storage. Because there is some indispensable data loss through the conversion of a complex SAR image to a display image, some applications, which need high-resolution images, cannot tolerate more data loss during compression. Therefore, lossless compression is appropriate to these applications. In this paper, we propose a novel lossless compression technique for a SAR display image using one-step predictor and block arithmetic coding.

• Proceedings of the KSRS Conference
• /
• 2008.10a
• /
• pp.422-425
• /
• 2008

TerraSAR-X is new radar satellite operated at X-band, multi polarization, and multi beam mode. Compared with C-band or L-band SAR, the X-band system inherently suffers from more temporal decorrelation, but is more sensitive to surface deformation monitoring due to short wavelength (3.1 cm) and high spatial resolution (1m-3m). It is generally expected that sensitivity to estimate surface movement using TerraSAR-X will be increased by the factor of 10, compared to current C-band system with low spatial resolution such as ERS-2, Envisat. Many urban areas are experiencing land subsidence due to water, oil and natural gas withdrawal, underground excavation, sediment compaction, and so on. Monitoring of surface deformation is valuable for effectively limiting damage areas. In addition high accuracy and spatially dense subsidence map can be achieved by X-band InSAR observation, promoting identification and separation of various subsidence processes and leading to enhanced understanding via mechanical modeling. In this study we will introduce some initial InSAR results using new TerraSAR-X SAR data for surface deformation monitoring.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
• /
• v.29 no.9
• /
• pp.17-29
• /
• 2013

The geophysical methods have an advantage for investigating the wide area with low cost, and thus the application of these methods has been increased. The objective of this paper estimates the characteristics of alluvium through the geophysical methods including elastic wave, electrical resistivity and ground penetration radar. And the standard penetration test is also carried out for verifying the geophysical data with comparison. The sources of elastic wave method are divided into hammer and sissy and the electrical resistivity method is applied with different sizes, shapes and arrays of electrode for deciding the effective way. The center frequency is determined to be 270 MHz for considering the characteristics of soil. The results of ground penetration radar are also compared with those of standard penetration test. The high resolution shows when the source is a sissy in elastic wave method, however, the water level is not identified. In the electrical resistivity method, the non-polarizable electrode and schlumberger array show highly reliable data and the resolution of ground penetration radar is low. Thus, the results of this study are widely applied for determining the appropriate method when investigating the characteristics of alluvium.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
• /
• v.25 no.4
• /
• pp.445-458
• /
• 2008

Image chain analysis of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite is one of the primary activities for satellite design because SAR image quality depends on spacecraft bus performance as well as SAR payload. Especially, satellite pointing and stability error make worst effect on the original SAR image quality which is implemented by SAR payload design. In this research, Image chain analysis S/W was developed in order to analyze the SAR image quality degradation due to satellite pointing and stability error. This S/W consists of orbit model, attitude control model, SAR payload model, clutter model, and SAR processor. SAR raw data, which includes total 25 point targets in the scene of $5km{\times}5km$ swath width, was generated and then processed for analysis. High resolution mode (spotlight), of which resolution is 1m, was applied. The results of image chain analysis show that radiometric accuracy is the most degraded due to the pointing error. Therefore, the successful design of attitude control subsystem in spacecraft bus for enhancing the pointing accuracy is most important for image quality.

• Journal of Satellite, Information and Communications
• /
• v.8 no.2
• /
• pp.88-93
• /
• 2013

The wideband chirp signal generator to enhance the resolution of synthetic aperture radar of obtaining the earth observation image is needed. This paper deals with designing, manufacturing and testing the wideband digital chirp signal generator having high resolution for LEO earth observation satellite. The wideband digital chirp signal generator is implemented with the memory-map based structure which is mostly applied in the satellite, and consists of the digital module to generate the digital chirp signal and the RF module to perform the quadrature modulation. The I/Q signals stored in the memory of the digital module are D/A converted and delivered to be quadrature modulated with the reference signal of 1275 MHz in the RF module. Furthermore, the test bench and GUI to validate the signal generator function are also developed. It is found that the requirement of 144 MHz bandwidth for the digital chirp signal generator is well met. Finally it is noteworthy that the distortion occurred in the chirp signal generator was compensated by the pre-distortion compensation.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
• /
• v.19 no.1
• /
• pp.27-37
• /
• 2010

A system coupled the prognostic WRF mesoscale model and CALMET diagnostic model has been employed for predicting high-resolution wind field over complex coastal area. WRF has three nested grids down to from during two days from 24 August 2007 to 26 August 2007. CALMET simulation is performed using both initial meteorological field from WRF coarsest results and surface boundary condition that is Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) 90m topography and Environmental Geographic Information System (EGIS) 30m landuse during same periods above. Four Automatic Weather System (AWS) and a Sonic Detection And Ranging (SODAR) are used to verify modeled wind fields. Horizontal wind fields in CM_100m is not only more complex but better simulated than WRF_1km results at Backwoon and Geumho in which there are shown stagnation, blocking effects and orographically driven winds. Being increased in horizontal grid spacing, CM_100m is well matched with vertically wind profile compared SODAR. This also mentions the importance of high-resolution surface boundary conditions when horizontal grid spacing is increased to produce detailed wind fields over complex terrain features.

• Atmosphere
• /
• v.33 no.1
• /
• pp.61-72
• /
• 2023

Accurate estimation of forest carbon stocks is important in establishing greenhouse gas reduction plans. In this study, we estimate the spatial distribution of forest carbon stocks using machine learning techniques based on high-resolution remote sensing data and detailed field survey data. The high-resolution remote sensing data used in this study are Landsat indices (EVI, NDVI, NDII) for monitoring vegetation vitality and Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) data for describing topography. We also used the forest growing stock data from the National Forest Inventory (NFI) for estimating forest biomass. Based on these data, we built a model based on machine learning methods and optimized for Korean forest types to calculate the forest carbon stocks per grid unit. With the newly developed estimation model, we created forest carbon stocks maps and estimated the forest carbon stocks in South Korea. As a result, forest carbon stock in South Korea was estimated to be 432,214,520 tC in 2020. Furthermore, we estimated the loss of forest carbon stocks due to the Donghae-Uljin forest fire in 2022 using the forest carbon stock map in this study. The surrounding forest destroyed around the fire area was estimated to be about 24,835 ha and the loss of forest carbon stocks was estimated to be 1,396,457 tC. Our model serves as a tool to estimate spatially distributed local forest carbon stocks and facilitates accounting of real-time changes in the carbon balance as well as managing the LULUCF part of greenhouse gas inventories.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
• /
• v.40 no.5
• /
• pp.502-517
• /
• 2019

Global warming and rapid climate change have long affected the characteristics of typhoons in the Northwest Pacific, which has induced increasing devastating disasters along the coastal regions of the Korean peninsula. Synthetic Aperature Radar (SAR), as one of the microwave sensors, makes it possible to produce high-resolution sea surface wind field around the typhoon under cloudy atmospheric conditions, which has been impossible to obtain the winds from satellite optical and infrared sensors. The Geophysical Model Functions (GMFs) for sea surface wind retrieval from SAR data requires the input of wind direction, which should be based on the accurate estimation of the center of the typhoon. This study estimated the typhoon centers using Sentinel-1A images to improve the problem of typhoon center detection method and to reflect it in retrieving the sea surface wind. The results were validated by comparing with the typhoon best track data provided by the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) and Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), and also by using infrared images of Himawari-8 satellite. The initial center position of the typhoon was determined by using VH polarization, thereby reducing the possibility of error. The detected center showed a difference of 23.76 km on average with the best track data of the four typhoons provided by the KMA and JMA. Compared to the typhoon center estimated by Himawari-8 satellite, the results showed an average spatial variation of 11.80 km except one typhoon located near land with a large difference of 58.73 km. This result suggests that high-resolution SAR images can be used to estimate the center and retrieve sea surface wind around typhoons.