Ground-Based SAR Interferometry (GB-InSAR) is nowadays a proven technique widely used for slope monitoring in open pit mines and landslide control. Traditional GB-InSAR techniques involve transmitting and receiving antennas moving on a scanner to achieve the desired synthetic aperture. Mechanical movement limits the acquisition speed of the SAR image. There is a need for faster acquisition time as it plays an important role in correcting rapidly varying atmospheric effects. Also, a fast imaging radar can extend the applications to the measurement of vibrations of large structures. Furthermore, the mechanical assembly put constraints on the transportability and weight of the system. To overcome these limitations an electronically switched array would be preferable, which however faces enormous technological and cost difficulties associated to the large number of array elements needed. Imaging Multiple-Input Multiple Output (MIMO) radars can be used as a significant alternative to usual mechanical SAR and full array systems. This paper describes the ground-based X-band MIMO radar SPARX recently developed by IDS GeoRadar in order to overcome the limits of IDS GeoRadar’s well-established ground based interferometric SAR systems. The SPARX array consists of 16 transmit and 16 receive antennas, organized in independent sub-modules and geometrically arranged in order to synthesize an equally spaced virtual array of 256 elements.
Ground collapse is a serious issue for underground mining, and currently there is a lack of remote sensing monitoring systems to perform real-time deformation monitoring. Extensometers can be used in several situations; however, this instrumentation obliges the user to work close to unstable areas, thus a remote monitoring system would offer noticeably improved safety conditions. IDS GeoRadar, a provider of radar technology for slope monitoring in surface mining, recently developed an interferometric radar system for underground operations to monitor ground fall precursors and provide early warning in order to evacuate people and machinery at risk. This radar system is able to monitor slow deformations to produce preliminary risk assessment on potentially exposed instabilities in underground areas. The new radar system is able to provide sub-millimetre displacement accuracy at a spatial resolution of tens of centimetres, with updated displacement information every 30 seconds. In this paper, the system is described, along with performance test results and assessment of monitoring performances in real scenarios.
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