Analysis of High-Resolution SAR for Nuclear Safeguards

In support of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Canadian Safeguards Support Program (CSSP) is continuing to investigate techniques to exploit high-resolution synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery for safeguards applications. The paper will present some potential applications of current high-resolution radar imagery for infrastructure analysis and change detection using TerraSAR-X (Germany) and RADARSAT-2 (Canada) imagery, in addition to COSMO-SkyMed (Italy) imagery which was recently available for Canadian nuclear facilities. Characteristics of each SAR sensor will be reviewed for its capabilities to detect objects and structures. A change detection case study will be presented involving coherent change detection (CCD) at a uranium mine using 1 metre TerraSAR-X imagery. These results will be compared to CCD images derived from 8 metre RADARSAT-1 imagery of the same mine and will illustrate the benefits of the higher resolution imagery for change detection. It will also be shown how interferometrically derived elevation models can be used to measure the depth of local craters created by underground nuclear tests and how this technique could also be used to monitor the height, hence the amount of ore stockpiles. This detection capability would assist the IAEA in its monitoring and verification of mining activities.