Application of satellite SAR imagery for monitoring the condition of airport surface

Assessing the condition of Ukrainian airfield surfaces remains a pressing issue even under the conditions of a flight ban for civil aviation. The purpose of the work is to analyze the possibility of using C-band satellite radar images for monitoring airfield surfaces and maintaining the operational readiness of airports in Ukraine. Methods. The paper analyzes long-term processes using the technology of processing large time series of radar images of the Sentinel-1 satellite. This technology is the basis of the Permanent Scatterer Interferometry method (PSI). The method of Permanent Scatterers is implemented using the StaMPS software package in Matlab. Preliminary automated preparation of the time series of images is performed using the SNAP2StaMPS algorithm. The TRAIN toolkit was used to reduce the influence of atmospheric effects on the results of radar imaging. Results. Based on the results of processing 39 SAR images, a map of average deformation velocities was obtained for the territory of Airport X for the period from June 2021 to December 2023. The resulting deformation velocity map shows a dense network of permanent scatterers along the runway. Such results were achieved due to the low decorrelation of the signal in the time series of images. During the research period, the coherence of the signal for the runway area was maximally stable. The presence of a large number of points that are defined as permanent scatterers and practically evenly cover the runway area indicates the effectiveness of the InSAR method for monitoring airfield surfaces. Analysis of the obtained velocity map indicates the stability of the runway surface during the study period. The determined settlement value in the landing zone is about 5 mm along the satellite’s line of sight. The maximum determined amplitude of spatial displacements is about 10 mm in the satellite’s line of sight direction. The value of the mean square deviation of the calculated deformation rates on almost the entire runway is within ±0.5 mm/year. In areas characterized by subsidence tendencies, we observe an increase in the value of the mean square deviation to 1 mm/year. The scientific novelty of the presented study lies in confirming the effectiveness of using medium-resolution satellite radar data for monitoring airfield runway deformations. The practical significance of the research results lies in the timely detection of deformations of airfield surface areas based on the data of radar imaging by the Sentinel-1 satellite.