Remote sensing with the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) for urban damage detection

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the application of SAR imagery technology to the detection of changes and damage in urban areas, with particular emphasis on changes caused by natural and manmade disasters. Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) provides high quality images in all weather and all time conditions. It shows promise for acquiring spatial and temporal high-resolution data for urban damage detection. SAR simulation of real-sized structures (including bridges and buildings) is proposed first as a proof of concept to demonstrate the usefulness of SAR applications and its imaging potentials and characteristics relevant to urban areas. The second objective of this research is to study the capabilities of damage and change diagnostic schemes based on simulated complex SAR images of pre- and post-events. A SAR image is obtained from a coherent imagery system, it can be described in three dimensions, sometimes referred to as a complex imagery system, whereby two dimensions represent the image and the third dimension represents the phase content of the image. The phase information is relevant to the detection of the finer details in the image. A library of SAR signal responses on buildings and structures are also being compiled.