Ground-based real-aperture radar for deformation monitoring: Experimental tests

This paper describes a series of six experiments to assess the potential of the Ground-Based Interferometric Real-Aperture Radar sensor IBIS-S (IDS Company, Pisa, Italy). In particular, attention focuses on long-term quasi-static deformation monitoring, because the measurement of dynamic deformation has been already treated by many authors. The use along with artificial corner reflectors, the repositioning mode, the mitigation of atmospheric effects, as well as the use from multiple stations (‘stereo-radar’) to help the recognition of targets and to improve the geometric definition of spatial displacements are the main subjects of these experiments. The results have shown the high potential of this kind of instrumentation for concurrent monitoring of several points of a complex structure, even though further research is needed to be fully operational and competitive against consolidated monitoring techniques.