Time-Series InSAR Dynamic Analysis With Robust Sequential Adjustment

Nowadays, SAR instruments such as ESA’s Sentinel-1 constellation, ICEYE’s constellation of small and agile radar satellites, and the upcoming ALOS-4 and NASA/ISRO SAR missions provide new opportunities for near-real-time monitoring of geohazards with enhanced spatiotemporal resolution. Sequential dynamic adjustment model is regarded as an effective way to rapidly update time-series InSAR measurements. However, the accuracy of geophysical parameters of interest estimated from the conventional sequential least squares is greatly sensitive to the anomalous observations and/or anomalous prior parameter information. This letter aims to introduce the robust sequential adjustment method based on the M-estimation principle into near-real-time InSAR deformation monitoring to mitigate the effect of anomalous errors. Using both synthetic and real Sentinel-1 SAR datasets over Echigo plain in Japan, we fully evaluate the performance of the robust sequential estimation approach with respect to unwrapping errors in the SAR data stack. Measurements at 9 GPS stations located in the study area are used to validate the results. We find that the averaged RMSE of robust sequential adjustment is reduced by 15% in comparison with that of the conventional sequential least-squares method.