InSAR Project Information

1. InSAR Project Information

2. Outline • Purpose • Two components – SAR investigation, InSAR study • SAR investigation: presentation only • InSAR study: presentation and report • Constraints • Potential project activities

3. Purpose • The class project will be used to assess the student’s grasp of the course material, their ability apply the course concepts to a meaningful problem. • With these goals, the project will remove the need for a final exam. • That’s right – no final exam for this course. So do your very best on the project as it will be my primary measure of your understanding of the course material. The final course grade will be based on 60% homework and 40% project. • If you are dissatisfied with this change, please contact me and I’ll develop a final exam for you so that the original 40% homework, 20% project, 40% final exam formula will be applied. • Do not plagiarize! Plagiarized work will result in a zero score on the project for the guilty party (which will devastate their course final grade).

4. Two components – SAR investigation, InSAR study • The InSAR class project has two independent components. • The SAR investigation component is less rigorous and is intended to stimulate learning and curiosity (may even be fun). Presentation only, no report • The student is expanding our view of SAR by exposing us to new aspects of SAR – maybe new applications, new phenomena, non-traditional systems (GPR, acoustic, medical, etc.) • The InSAR study is more rigorous and is intended to demonstrate scholarship.Presentation and report • The student formally applies InSAR understanding of concepts to a system or data.

5. SAR investigation • After some initial exploration of this space, the student will propose a relevant topic of interest. The topic must be approved before proceeding (please consult with me early in the process to get approval). • Pick some interesting aspect of SAR (systems, applications, phenomenology, challenges, etc.) for presentation. • Clearly present your findings to the class (~10 minute presentation). The presentation is intended to promote discussion, i.e., it should raise questions that we can discuss. • Presentations begin Friday Nov 20

6. InSAR study • After some initial exploration of this space, the student will propose a relevant topic of interest. The topic must be approved before proceeding (please consult with me early in the process to get approval). • Pick some aspect of InSAR that interests you. • Clearly present your findings to the class (10-15 minute presentation). The presentation is intended to educate the audience and should reach clear conclusions regarding this body of work.

7. InSAR Study Constraints • Team size: 1 person • Presentation of preliminary progress to class • presentation duration 10 to 15 minutes with additional 5 minutes for questions • presentations begin on 4 December 2015 • purpose is to provide feedback on process and initial results • presentation will not be graded – it is intended for information sharing only • Project report • Report contents • Cover page (1 pg)includes title, author’s name, abstract • Report body (10 pgs max) • References page cite references properly to avoid plagiarism • Appendices data, graphs, program code, minimal text • Format: All margins 1”, 11-pt Arial font, line spacing of 1.5 • Due on 14 December 2015 • Electronic submission, pdf format • Evaluation based on technical content, quality and clarity of writing, format, etc.

8. Project report • Project report must include: • Clear problem statement • Outline of the proposed solution • System description and analysis • Data analysis and interpretation • Conclusion assessing capabilities and limitations of proposed solution • Be thorough and rigorous. • Cite references appropriately. • Do not duplicate the work of others. • Document your work (provide Matlab code where appropriate). • Point out difficulties or results you know are incorrect. • Discuss your findings – simply presenting a final plot is inadequate; a discussion of it’s meaning and interpretation is required. • Propose what others might try in the future to yield improved results.

9. Project topics • I am presenting a range of candidate project topics. Other topic concepts may be entertained – please consult with me early in the process to get approval. • Listed below are the candidate topics: • Present about a specific InSAR system, its application, and example data products. Student-derived analysis of some aspect is required (e.g., system design, signal analysis via simulation, etc.) • Develop proposal for novel InSAR application. Include high-level system design backed up by simulation and/or analysis. • Simulation of an InSAR system. Devise a system concept, simulate system to produce simulated signal data, process signal data, produce InSAR data product.

10. Develop proposal for novel InSAR application • Following the example of the InSAR application presentation, develop a proposal for a new (not previously published) application that exploits InSAR’s capabilities. • The proposal must: • address the scientific significance of the problem • identify the key measurable parameters (e.g., height change, velocity, coherence, etc.) • provide system specifications for an InSAR capable of measuring these parameters (e.g., operating frequency, data collection geometry, spatial and temporal baselines, etc.) • results from numerical simulation of key processes • analyze error sources and their impact on the science data • conclusions

11. Simulation of InSAR system • This project concept involves production and processing of simulated radar data. • produce complex SAR phase histories for each antenna phase center • produce single-look complex SAR images for each simulated signal file • combine subsets of SLC SAR images to produce interferograms • from the interferograms, produce data products (e.g., height estimates) • remove geometric distortion • This project requires (1) production of simulated phase history data sets, (2) SAR image formation processing of the simulated phase history data, (3) InSAR processing of the complex SAR images.