Assessment of spaceborne SAR micro-motion measurement for vibration-based SHM

Aleksanteri B. Vattulainen; Alessandro Lotti; Sebastián Díaz Riofrio; Chiara Suppi; Enrico Tubaldi; Daniele Zonta; Pietro Milillo; Carmine Clemente

doi:10.1109/ACCESS.2026.3652346

Assessment of spaceborne SAR micro-motion measurement for vibration-based SHM

Aleksanteri B. Vattulainen, Alessandro Lotti, Sebastián Díaz Riofrio, Chiara Suppi, Enrico Tubaldi, Daniele Zonta, Pietro Milillo, Carmine Clemente

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Remote sensing methods for vibration-based structural health monitoring (VBSHM) are gaining interest given the benefits of non-contact sensing for this application: broader spatial coverage, easier measurement access to structures such as bridges, and cost savings from reducing the need for embedded sensor networks. Vibration measurement using micro-Doppler synthetic aperture radar (MDSAR) is an emerging technique enabling the measurement of structural vibrations from synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite data, exploiting recent advancements in high-resolution X-band radar imaging. This paper presents a detailed metrological assessment of MDSAR–using processing based on the pre-existing subpixel offset tracking (SPOT) concept as a representative method–to evaluate its applicability to VBSHM. Measurements are made from real SAR images of vibrating targets with synchronous ground truth data. The results verify that the technique can be used to measure target motion time-histories with dynamics relevant to SHM, namely different modulations with frequencies from 1 to 4 Hz, and radial RMS displacement amplitudes from 10.43 to 0.10 mm. These results pave the way for future measurements of infrastructure.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	6043-6064
Number of pages	22
Journal	IEEE Access
Volume	14
Early online date	12 Jan 2026
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2026.3652346
Publication status	Published - 15 Jan 2026

Funding

The study presented was funded by: the European Space Agency under the projects “Bridge Monitoring Based on Single Pass SAR Images” and “EO4Security – Innovative SAR Processing Methodologies For Security Applications-Topic B2: Micro-Doppler Processing”, the ReLUIS Interuniversity Consortium under the agreement DPC-ReLUIS 2020-2022 and DPC-ReLUIS 2024-2026 WP 6 “Monitoring and satellite data”, and the European Union – Next Generation EU, Mission 4 Component 2 – CUP E53D23003560006. The work of P.M. was performed at the University of Houston under a contract with the NASA Commercial Smallsat Data Scientific Analysis Program (NNH22ZDA001N-CSDSA), the NASA Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition New Vendor Onramp Evaluation (NNH23ZDA001N-CNVOE) and the NASA Commercial Satellite Data Earth Science Research and Applications program (NNH24ZDA001N-CESRA).

Keywords

frequency detection
micro-doppler
micro-motion
SAR
vibration-based SHM
vibration

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10.1109/ACCESS.2026.3652346Licence: CC BY 4.0

Vattulainen-etal-IEEE-Access-2026-Assessment-of-spaceborne-SAR-micro-motion-measurementFinal published version, 4.7 MBLicence: CC BY 4.0

Cite this

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title = "Assessment of spaceborne SAR micro-motion measurement for vibration-based SHM",

abstract = "Remote sensing methods for vibration-based structural health monitoring (VBSHM) are gaining interest given the benefits of non-contact sensing for this application: broader spatial coverage, easier measurement access to structures such as bridges, and cost savings from reducing the need for embedded sensor networks. Vibration measurement using micro-Doppler synthetic aperture radar (MDSAR) is an emerging technique enabling the measurement of structural vibrations from synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite data, exploiting recent advancements in high-resolution X-band radar imaging. This paper presents a detailed metrological assessment of MDSAR–using processing based on the pre-existing subpixel offset tracking (SPOT) concept as a representative method–to evaluate its applicability to VBSHM. Measurements are made from real SAR images of vibrating targets with synchronous ground truth data. The results verify that the technique can be used to measure target motion time-histories with dynamics relevant to SHM, namely different modulations with frequencies from 1 to 4 Hz, and radial RMS displacement amplitudes from 10.43 to 0.10 mm. These results pave the way for future measurements of infrastructure.",

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author = "Vattulainen, \{Aleksanteri B.\} and Alessandro Lotti and \{D{\'i}az Riofrio\}, Sebasti{\'a}n and Chiara Suppi and Enrico Tubaldi and Daniele Zonta and Pietro Milillo and Carmine Clemente",

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AU - Vattulainen, Aleksanteri B.

AU - Lotti, Alessandro

AU - Díaz Riofrio, Sebastián

AU - Suppi, Chiara

AU - Tubaldi, Enrico

AU - Zonta, Daniele

AU - Milillo, Pietro

AU - Clemente, Carmine

PY - 2026/1/15

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N2 - Remote sensing methods for vibration-based structural health monitoring (VBSHM) are gaining interest given the benefits of non-contact sensing for this application: broader spatial coverage, easier measurement access to structures such as bridges, and cost savings from reducing the need for embedded sensor networks. Vibration measurement using micro-Doppler synthetic aperture radar (MDSAR) is an emerging technique enabling the measurement of structural vibrations from synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite data, exploiting recent advancements in high-resolution X-band radar imaging. This paper presents a detailed metrological assessment of MDSAR–using processing based on the pre-existing subpixel offset tracking (SPOT) concept as a representative method–to evaluate its applicability to VBSHM. Measurements are made from real SAR images of vibrating targets with synchronous ground truth data. The results verify that the technique can be used to measure target motion time-histories with dynamics relevant to SHM, namely different modulations with frequencies from 1 to 4 Hz, and radial RMS displacement amplitudes from 10.43 to 0.10 mm. These results pave the way for future measurements of infrastructure.

AB - Remote sensing methods for vibration-based structural health monitoring (VBSHM) are gaining interest given the benefits of non-contact sensing for this application: broader spatial coverage, easier measurement access to structures such as bridges, and cost savings from reducing the need for embedded sensor networks. Vibration measurement using micro-Doppler synthetic aperture radar (MDSAR) is an emerging technique enabling the measurement of structural vibrations from synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite data, exploiting recent advancements in high-resolution X-band radar imaging. This paper presents a detailed metrological assessment of MDSAR–using processing based on the pre-existing subpixel offset tracking (SPOT) concept as a representative method–to evaluate its applicability to VBSHM. Measurements are made from real SAR images of vibrating targets with synchronous ground truth data. The results verify that the technique can be used to measure target motion time-histories with dynamics relevant to SHM, namely different modulations with frequencies from 1 to 4 Hz, and radial RMS displacement amplitudes from 10.43 to 0.10 mm. These results pave the way for future measurements of infrastructure.

KW - frequency detection

KW - micro-doppler

KW - micro-motion

KW - SAR

KW - vibration-based SHM

KW - vibration

UR - https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?punumber=6287639

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JO - IEEE Access

JF - IEEE Access

ER -

Assessment of spaceborne SAR micro-motion measurement for vibration-based SHM

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EO4SECURITY-MicroDoppler

Cite this

Assessment of spaceborne SAR micro-motion measurement for vibration-based SHM

Abstract

Funding

Keywords

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Fingerprint

Projects

EO4SECURITY-MicroDoppler

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