RADAR, SAR and Beyond…

Presented By
Debayan Chatterjee
Project Assistant

Under the guidance of

Dr. V. M. Tiwari

CSIR – National Geophysical Research Institute

Uppal Road, Hyderabad, Telangana (India)

Bats and Echolocation
 RADAR: Man-made Bats
• RADAR stands for RAdio Detection And Ranging.
• RADAR is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the
range, angle, or velocity of objects.
 Why Microwave? Why not Optical/Infrared?

• RADAR systems have their own energy source and are independent of
Sun’s illumination which is unreliable and variable.
Thus, can be used at night/on cloudy days. For example – can image
active volcanoes without the smoke.
• The energy being transmitted is known. The energy received is
calculated by the receiver. Only unknown is the nature of interaction
b/w the pulse and the target.
Thus is sensitive to dielectric properties .
Optical versus RADAR
Why “Synthetic Aperture” RADAR?

Why not RADAR, simply?

 Understanding Aperture:
Good resolution comes at a cost!
What SAR does is that it simulates a long antenna!

Long Large Small Beam High

Antenna Aperture Width Resolution
How SAR “sees”
 How SAR works
• SAR estimates the distance to an image point using the two-way travel
time of the pulse – down from the transmitter to the target, and back to
the receiver.

• SAR estimates the azimuth of an image point using the phenomenon of

Doppler effect.
Sentinel – 1/ Copernicus/ ESA
Google Earth vs. C-Band Sentinel-1 SAR image
Finally… Interferometric SAR
We combine two SAR images of the same target, with phases ɸ1 and ɸ2
to create an interferogram with phase (ɸ1 - ɸ2)

These two images can be taken –

• From slightly different viewpoints, like two RADAR systems mounted
on the same platform.
• From same viewpoint, but at different times.
What interests us is “two-pass” InSAR
InSAR &
Hydrology

•Mapping land
subsidence due to
extensive groundwater
extraction in the Santa
Clara Valley, CA.

•Creating a DEM.
Northern India is
home to over 60 crore
people.

Our plan…
•To study land
subsidence in the Indo-
Gangetic plains caused
by extensive
groundwater extraction
using InSAR datasets.
•To club our
observations with
GRACE and GPS
datasets.
Thank You!