Sentinel 1 Radiometrically Terrain Corrected (RTC)

The Sentinel-1 mission is a constellation of two polar-orbiting satellites, operating day and night performing C-band synthetic aperture radar imaging. The Sentinel-1 Radiometrically Terrain Corrected (RTC) data in this collection is a radiometrically terrain corrected product derived from the Ground Range Detected (GRD) Level-1 products produced by the European Space Agency. The RTC processing is performed by Catalyst.

Radiometric Terrain Correction accounts for terrain variations that affect both the position of a given point on the Earth's surface and the brightness of the radar return, as expressed in radar geometry. Without treatment, the hill-slope modulations of the radiometry threaten to overwhelm weaker thematic land cover-induced backscatter differences. Additionally, comparison of backscatter from multiple satellites, modes, or tracks loses meaning.

A Planetary Computer account is required to retrieve SAS tokens to read the RTC data. See the documentation for more information.

Methodology

The Sentinel-1 GRD product is converted to calibrated intensity using the conversion algorithm described in the ESA technical note ESA-EOPG-CSCOP-TN-0002, Radiometric Calibration of S-1 Level-1 Products Generated by the S-1 IPF. The flat earth calibration values for gamma correction (i.e. perpendicular to the radar line of sight) are extracted from the GRD metadata. The calibration coefficients are applied as a two-dimensional correction in range (by sample number) and azimuth (by time). All available polarizations are calibrated and written as separate layers of a single file. The calibrated SAR output is reprojected to nominal map orientation with north at the top and west to the left.

The data is then radiometrically terrain corrected using PlanetDEM as the elevation source. The correction algorithm is nominally based upon D. Small, “Flattening Gamma: Radiometric Terrain Correction for SAR Imagery”, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, Vol 49, No 8., August 2011, pp 3081-3093. For each image scan line, the digital elevation model is interpolated to determine the elevation corresponding to the position associated with the known near slant range distance and arc length for each input pixel. The elevations at the four corners of each pixel are estimated using bilinear resampling. The four elevations are divided into two triangular facets and reprojected onto the plane perpendicular to the radar line of sight to provide an estimate of the area illuminated by the radar for each earth flattened pixel. The uncalibrated sum at each earth flattened pixel is normalized by dividing by the flat earth surface area. The adjustment for gamma intensity is given by dividing the normalized result by the cosine of the incident angle. Pixels which are not illuminated by the radar due to the viewing geometry are flagged as shadow.

Calibrated data is then orthorectified to the appropriate UTM projection. The orthorectified output maintains the original sample sizes (in range and azimuth) and was not shifted to any specific grid.

RTC data is processed only for the Interferometric Wide Swath (IW) mode, which is the main acquisition mode over land and satisfies the majority of service requirements.