Chinese Journal of Electronics

Vol.32, No.5, Sept. 2023

A Novel Adaptive InSAR Phase Filtering

Method Based on Complexity Factors
XU Huaping1, WANG Yuan1, LI Chunsheng1, ZENG Guobing1,
LI Shuo2, LI Shuang3, and REN Chong4
(1. School of Electronic and Information Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China)
(2. Nanjing Research Institute of Electronics Technology, Nanjing 211113, China)
(3. Beijing Institute of Radio Measurement, Beijing 100191, China)
(4. China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, Beijing 100076, China)

Abstract — Phase filtering is an essential step in in-
terferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) imaging.
For interferograms of complicated and changeable terrain,
the increasing resolution of InSAR images makes it even
more difficult. In this paper, a novel adaptive InSAR
phase filtering method based on complexity factors is pro-
posed. Firstly, three complexity factors based on the noise
distribution and terrain slope information of the interfero-
gram are selected. The complexity indicator composed of
three complexity factors is used to guide the adaptive se-
lection of the most suitable and effective filtering
strategies for different areas. Then, the complexity scalar
is calculated, which can guide the adaptive local fringe
frequency estimation and adaptive parameters calculation
in different filter methods. Finally, validations are per-
formed on the simulated and real data. The performance
comparison between the other three representative phase
filtering method and the proposed method have validated
the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method.
Key words — Interferometric synthetic aperture
radar, Adaptive, Phase filtering, Complexity Factors,
Local fringe frequency (LFF).
I. Introduction
Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is one of the most
vital technology in the field of microwave remote sens-
ing. Interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) is
an important branch of SAR. It provides the digital el-
evation model (DEM) and earth surface deformation
[1], [2], which have been successfully and widely used in
civil and scientific research fields.
Interferometric phase noise cannot be avoided due
to the existence of thermal noise and various decorrela-
tion factors, which increase the difficulty of phase un-
wrapping and ultimately affects the precision of DEM
and deformation reconstruction [3]. Thus, phase filter-
ing is crucial for improving the quality of SAR inter-
ferograms before phase unwrapping [4]. The first and
foremost objective of InSAR phase filtering is suppress-
ing the noise as much as possible while preserving fringe
details adaptively.
With the rapid development of InSAR, a large
number of phase filtering methods have been proposed
by researchers, which can be generally divided into spa-
tial domain filtering and transform domain filtering.
In the spatial domain filtering, the simplest filter-
ing methods are the mean filter and the median filter.
Early spatial domain filtering methods adopted fixed fil-
ter window [5], so they are poor in fringe detail preser-
vation. Lee et al. proposed a filtering method that ad-
aptively adjusts the size and orientation of the filter
window to maintain a balance between denoising and
fringe detail preservation [6]. However, its limited 16
window orientations may cause distortion to complic-
ated fringes. In view of the problems in Lee’s filtering
method, several papers propose improvements to the
Lee’s filter in terms of directional window [7], fringe fre-
quency [8], and phase gradient [9]. The aforementioned
filtering methods are based on interferometric phase it-
self. In 2006, Vasile et al. proposed an intensity driven
adaptive neighborhood (IDAN) method [10], which de-
tects homogeneous pixels in the neighborhood by SAR
intensity information, to assist the interferometric phase

Manuscript Received Aug. 7, 2021; Accepted July 1, 2022. This work was supported by the Shanghai Aerospace Science and
Technology Innovation Fund (SAST2019-026).
© 2023 Chinese Institute of Electronics. DOI:10.23919/cje.2021.00.280
1090 Chinese Journal of Electronics
filtering. However, its performance will be undermined
when there are not enough homogeneous pixels in the
neighborhood or heterogeneous pixels are included.
After that, a complex Markov random field (CMRF) fil-
ter, which estimates the phase by minimizing the local
energy function in the window, was proposed [11], [12].
To adapt to the changes of fringe pattern, Li et al. pro-
posed a variable window CMRF filter [13].
The spatial domain filtering methods introduced
above are all based on locally adjacent pixels. In the
early days, due to the limitation of computing re-
sources, the efficiency of an algorithm was the most
concerned index. In recent years, with the improve-
ment of computer technology, non-local phase filtering
methods have been developing rapidly [14], [15], so as
to overcome the constraint of estimating the phase in a
local window. With phase similarity calculated in a
matching window, weighted averaging of similar pixels
is performed, therefore non-local phase filtering can re-
duce noise while preserving structures [16], [17]. Buades
et al. first proposed a non-local mean filtering method
[18]. Then, Deledalle et al. applied the non-local idea to
interferometric phase filtering based on the statistical
characteristics of InSAR data and proposed the non-loc-
al InSAR (NL-InSAR) filtering method [19]. The patch
size is adaptively selected based on the heterogeneity of
local scenes. Li et al. proposed an improved non-local
filter that uses a normalized probability density func-
tion to measure the similarity between the center pixel
and the remaining pixels in the matching window [20].
However, the interferometric fringes are dense in steep
terrain areas, it is difficult to select similar pixels, which
in turn diminishes noise reduction. Therefore, introdu-
cing the fringe frequency compensation technology to
NL-InSAR can reduce fringe density and increase the
number of similar pixels in the search window, which is
conducive to obtaining more reliable noise suppression
results.
The transform domain filtering method rely on
transforming the interferometric phase from the spatial
domain to the frequency domain or the wavelet domain
for filtering, and then transforming filtered results back
to the spatial domain. In 1998, Goldstein et al. pro-
posed a classic frequency domain filtering method [21],
which achieved noise reduction by smoothing the fre-
quency spectrum. Besides the frequency domain, also
the wavelet domain has been considered for phase filter-
ing. A complex wavelet interferometric phase filter
(WInPF) is implemented in [22]. The useful signals are
extracted and amplified by utilizing discrete wavelet
transform. In the wavelet domain, the phase informa-
tion and noise are easier to separate [23], however,
which are highly depend on the wavelet decomposition
2023
and wavelet coefficients [24]. Bioucas-Dias et al. pro-
posed the phase estimation using adaptive regulariza-
tion based on local smoothing (PEARLS) algorithm
[25], which adaptively determines the polynomial fit-
ting window size by the intersection of confidence inter-
vals (ICI) algorithm.
In Goldstein’s method, noise is suppressed based on
the different spectrum characteristics between useful
signal and the noise. However, the filter parameter α
takes a fixed value from [0, 1], and α = 0 means no fil-
tering applied. With the increase of α, the smoothing ef-
fect is enhanced but the fringe details may be damaged
[26]. Therefore, to balance the fringe details preserva-
tion and noise suppression, efforts have been made by
researchers to improve the selection of α. Baran et al.
associate α with the coherence, and at the same time
define the smoothing operator as the convolution with
the mean kernel function [27]. Li et al. proposed that
the noise standard deviation can be used for adaptive
selection of α [28]. These improved Goldstein filtering
methods using coherence or noise standard deviation
are dependent on coherence, which is usually a biased
estimation. In order to reduce the impact of biased co-
herence on the filtered phase, Zhao et al. proposed a
pseudo coherence to determine α [29]. In addition, Sun
et al. proposed to use the signal-to-noise ratio defined
by the noise variance as a criterion to selection α [30].
To overcome the subjectivity of the selection of α, Song
et al. proposed two improved Goldstein filter methods
based on empirical mode decomposition and adaptive
neighborhood respectively [31], [32]. Generally, there
tend to be more noise in the dense fringe area, which
increases the difficulty of filtering. Therefore, a Gold-
stein filter method based on local fringe frequency com-
pensation was proposed in [26]. However, fringe fre-
quency estimation in both noisy phase and residual
phase makes it quite time-consuming.
It can be seen that neither non-local filtering nor
Goldstein filtering can perform well in dense fringes of
steep terrain. Facing the tradeoff between noise sup-
pression and fringe detail preservation, researchers com-
bine classic filtering methods with the fringe frequency
compensation [26], [33]. The essence of local fringe fre-
quency (LFF) compensation is to estimate the LFF of
the noisy phase [34], execute the filtering in residual
phase after removing LFF, and add back the removed
phase to the filtered residual phase. Trouve et al. pro-
posed a filtering algorithm based on LFF estimation to
enhance the fringe preserving ability [33], [35]. The lim-
itation of this algorithm lies in its fixed window size
and linearity presumption of LFF. Aiming at this prob-
lem, Cai et al. proposed that the size and shape of LFF
estimation window should be adaptively determined by
 A Novel Adaptive InSAR Phase Filtering Method Based on Complexity Factors
the coherent accumulation principle, which is rather
time-consuming [36]. Suo et al. proposed a high-order
LFF estimation method based on weighted least squares
phase unwrapping [37]. This algorithm breaks the lin-
earity presumption and behaves better in preserving
phase details. However, its pre-filtering and phase un-
wrapping process may introduce additional operation
and errors. From the above analysis, the improved
methods for LFF exhibit high time complexity and can-
not perform adaptive LFF estimation for fringe fre-
quency compensation.
For areas with sparse fringes in the interferogram,
LFF compensation is unnecessary for noise suppression.
However, the dense fringe area needs additional LFF es-
timation operation, and the filtering methods based on
LFF compensation are time-expensive. In addition, the
main drawback of the existing LFF estimation methods
is that the linear or nonlinear LFF cannot be estimated
adaptively based on the terrain slope, resulting in large
residual LFF estimation error or time consumption. On
the other hand, there are heavy noises in low-correla-
tion area, where needs stronger filtering strength.
However, the high-correlation area needs to reduce the
filter strength to prevent the fringe details from being
damaged. For an interferogram, it is difficult to achieve
high-performance noise suppression efficiently with a
single phase filtering methods. The complicated and
changeable terrain in the interferogram will pose a huge
challenge on these non-adaptive phase filtering meth-
ods. Therefore, to deal with these problems, it is neces-
sary to balance noise suppression, fringe detail preserva-
tion and computational efficiency based on different im-
age characteristics. Factors like noise level and terrain
slope information should be taken into account to se-
lect the optimal filtering strategy and filtering paramet-
ers for different areas.
To address the aforementioned problem, a novel
adaptive InSAR phase filtering method based on com-
plexity factors is proposed. Initially, the pseudo coher-
ence, normalized maximum phase gradient (MPG), and
normalized phase derivative variance (PDV) are calcu-
lated as the complexity factors. Based on the three
complexity factors, the complexity indicator is construc-
ted to guide the adaptive selection of the suitable and
effective filtering strategy for different areas in the in-
terferogram. Then, the complexity scalar, calculated by
the three complexity factors, is used to guide the adapt-
ive LFF estimation and adaptive filter parameters in
different filtering methods. Experiments on simulated
and real data prove that for complicated and change-
able terrain, the proposed method can not only effect-
ively suppress noise and preserve phase fringe details,
but also increase the calculation efficiency.
The rest of this article is organized as follows. The
1091
novel adaptive phase filtering method based on com-
plexity factors is presented in detail in Section II. The
proposed method is tested on both simulated and real
SAR data, where the experimental results are com-
pared with those of the slope adaptive filtering, im-
proved Goldstein filtering, and improved NL-InSAR fil-
tering methods in Section III. The conclusions are
drawn in Section IV.
II. Adaptive InSAR Phase Filtering
Method Based on Complexity Factors
Each filtering method has certain limitations and
unique applicability. Usually, a specific filtering meth-
od is selected according to the characteristics of the en-
tire image. However, different areas in the interferomet-
ric phase image usually exhibit different interferometric
fringe patterns due to different terrain scene. For ex-
ample, there are sparse and dense fringes in complic-
ated and changeable terrain. For sparse fringe, most fil-
tering methods can obtain satisfactory filtering result.
So, the filtering methods with higher calculation effi-
ciency is preferred. For the dense fringe, the filtering
becomes more difficult, taking into account the fringe
detail preservation and noise suppression. It is difficult
for a single filtering strategy to be the optimal filtering
for all areas when both filtering performance and calcu-
lation efficiency are required at the same time.
Therefore, a novel adaptive InSAR phase filtering
method based on complexity factors is proposed. The
flowchart is shown in Fig.1. Firstly, the three complex-
ity factors related to the noise distribution and terrain
slope are employed to adaptively select the filter
strategies. Based on the three complexity factors, the
complexity indicator CF1(m, n) of interferogram is con-
structed to guide the adaptive selection of the most
suitable and effective filtering strategy for different
areas of the entire image. Then, the complexity scalar
CF2(m, n) is calculated according to the three complex-
ity factors, which can guide the adaptive LFF estima-
tion and compensation. The adaptive filter parameters
are determined by CF2(m, n) of filter window in differ-
ent filter methods for both residual phase and noisy
phase without removing LFF. In summary, the pro-
posed method adaptively selects the filtering strategy
and adjusts the filtering parameters based on the noise
and slope characteristics of the interferogram.
1. Complexity factors
Many indexes, including coherence, pseudo coher-
ence, PDV, MPG, and second-order phase gradient can
be used to describe the interferometric phase quality [38].
In this article, the pseudo coherence coefficient, normal-
ized PDV and normalized MPG are selected as com-
plexity factors, which represent the noise level and slope
1092 Chinese Journal of Electronics 2023

Start

Interferogram

Pseudo Normalized Normalized

coherence PDV MPG

CF1 (m, n) of Adaptive selection

interferogram of filtering strategy

CF1 (m, n)=2 CF1 (m, n)=1 CF1 (m, n)=0

NL-InSAR filter Goldstein filter
Goldstein
based on LFF based on LFF
filter
compensation compensation

Adaptive LFF
estimation and
compensation
CF2 (m, n) of
filter wondow
Adaptive filter
Phase filtering
parameters
Complexity
factors
Add LFF to filtered
residual phase

Filterd phase

End

Fig. 1. Flowchart of the proposed method.

information. tion on (i, j) respectively, ∆¯xm,n and ∆¯ym,n are the local
1) Pseudo coherence coefficient mean values of the phase derivatives for pixel (m, n) in
The pseudo coherence coefficient γ(m, n) repres- row and column respectively.
ents the noise level of interferometric phase and can be Since γ(m, n) ∈ [0, 1], in order to ensure the con-
calculated with interferometric phase alone. The calcu- sistency for all complexity factors, the PDV′ (m, n) is
lation formula is expressed as [39] normalized to PDV(m, n) by
v 2  2 ( )
u
u ∑
u ∑ PDV′ (m, n) − min PDV′ (i, j)
t cos φi,j  +  sin φi,j  PDV(m, n) = ( ) ( )
(1) max PDV′ (i, j) − min PDV′ (i, j)
i,j i,j (3)
γ(m, n) =
k2
where i ∈ M, j ∈ N , M and N represent the number of
where γ(m, n) is calculated in a k × k window centered rows and columns of the interferogram respectively.
on (m, n). φi,j represents the interferometric phase on ( ) ( )
And min PDV′ (i, j) and max PDV′ (i, j) represent
pixel (i, j) in the local window. the minimum and maximum PDV of the interferogram
2) Normalized PDV respectively.
The PDV of an interferogram is defined as [38] 3) Normalized MPG
PDV′ (m, n) The MPG of an interferogram is defined as [39]
√∑ √∑
( )2 ( )2
∆xi,j − ∆¯xm,n + ∆yi,j − ∆¯ym,n MPG′ (m, n) = max(max( ∆xi,j ), max( ∆yi,j )) (4)
i,j i,j
=
k2 where MPG′ (m, n) is the maximum phase gradient of
(2) row and column direction in a k × k window centered
where ∆xi,j = wrap(φi+1,j −φi,j ) and ∆yi,j = wrap(φi,j+1− on (m, n).
φi,j ) are the phase derivatives in row and column direc- Similarly, MPG′ (m, n) is normalized to MPG(m, n)
 A Novel Adaptive InSAR Phase Filtering Method Based on Complexity Factors
by
( )
MPG′ (m, n) − min MPG′ (i, j)
MPG(m, n) = ( ) ( )
max MPG′ (i, j) − min MPG′ (i, j)
(5)
( ) ( )
where min MPG′ (i, j) and max MPG′ (i, j) represent
the minimum and maximum MPG of the interferogram
respectively.
It is known that the pseudo coherence coefficient
γ(m, n) is inversely proportional to the noise level. The
PDV(m, n) and MPG(m, n) are related to the slope of
the terrain, and their values are proportional to the
steepness of the terrain. So pseudo coherence coefficient,
normalized PDV, and normalized MPG represent the
noise level and terrain slope information and are selec-
ted as complexity factors to guide the adaptive phase
filtering of the interferogram.
2. Adaptive selection of filtering strategy
For interferograms with complicated and change-
able terrain background, the noise and terrain slope
changes greatly. It is necessary to select different filter-
ing strategies for different areas with different terrain
characteristics. Hence, an adaptive selection of filtering
strategy is proposed based on the complexity factors.
γ(m, n) characterizes the phase noise. The pseudo
coherence coefficient indicator γ1 (m, n) is calculated by
{ 
0, γ(m, n) > γmean
γ1 (m, n) = (6)
1, γ(m, n) ≤ γmean
where γmean is the mean value of pseudo coherence coef-
ficient of the interferogram. γ1 (m, n) = 0 means that
the phase noise level of the pixel (m, n) is relatively low.
Similarly, PDV indicator PDV1 (m, n) and MPG in-
dicator MPG1 (m, n) of pixel (m, n) are calculated by
{ The PDV_r and MPG_r are the maximum value
0, PDV(m, n) ≤ PDVmean
PDV1 (m, n) = (7)
1, PDV(m, n) > PDVmean
{ vert PDV and MPG to the same magnitude. The
0, MPG(m, n) ≤ MPGmean
MPG1 (m, n) = (8)
1, MPG(m, n) > MPGmean
where PDVmean and MPGmean are the mean value of the
normalized PDV and normalized MPG of an interfero-
gram. PDV1 (m, n) = 1 and MPG1 (m, n) = 1 mean that
the slope of the terrain near the pixel (m, n) is relat-
ively steep.
According to the relationship between the three
complexity factors γ(m, n), PDV(m, n), and MPG(m, n)
of each pixel (m, n) and the corresponding mean value
γmean , PDVmean, and MPGmean, γ1 (m, n), PDV1 (m, n),
and MPG1 (m, n) are calculated, which are binary para-
meters of 0 or 1 with no dimension.
The complexity indicator CF1(m, n) can be calcu-
lated by
1093
CF1(m, n) = γ1 (m, n) + PDV1 (m, n) × MPG1 (m, n)
(9)
Only when PDV1 (m, n) and MPG1 (m, n) both
equal to 1, the value of PDV1 (m, n) × MPG1 (m, n) is 1,
which makes the steepness indicator more robust and
reliable. γ1 (m, n) = 1 means that the noise of the pixel
(m, n) is relatively large. Therefore, the three discrete
values 0, 1, and 2 of CF1(m, n) can be obtained by the
formula (9), which guides the adaptive selection of the
filter strategy.
Moreover, the window size is very important for
the filtering. Here, the adaptive window size is determ-
ined by the three complexity factors. Firstly, it is im-
portant to set a basic filter window size window , then the
filter window size of different filter strategies is adjus-
ted based on window and CF1(m, n). window is calculated
by
window = 2 × (PDV_r + MPG_r + γ_r) + 1 (10)
where
⌈ ⌉
max(abs(PDV(i, j) − PDVmean ))
PDV− r = (11)
PDVstd
⌈ ⌉
max(abs(MPG(i, j) − MPGmean ))
MPG− r = (12)
MPGstd
 −1, 0.8 < γmean ≤ 1
γ_r = 0, 0.4 < γmean ≤ 0.8 (13)

1, 0 ≤ γmean ≤ 0.4
PDVstd and MPGstd are the standard deviation of
the normalized PDV and normalized MPG of the inter-
ferogram respectively. ⌈·⌉ rounds up its arguments to
the nearest integer.
of Z-score normalized PDV and Z-score normalized
MPG respectively. Z-score normalization [40] could con-
PDV_r and MPG_r are related with the largest ter-
rain slope pixel of the interferogram. Sun et al. state
that larger terrain slopes lead to more severe baseline
decorrelation and lower signal noise ratio (SNR) in the
interferogram [41]. The larger window size should be set
for the lower SNR areas. Therefore, the PDV_r and
MPG_r, determined by the largest terrain slope, are
used to jointly set the basic radius of filter window size.
Correlation is inversely proportional to the noise
level, therefore γ_r, determined by correlation coeffi-
cient, is used to adjust the filter window size. Here, 0.8
and 0.4 are chosen experimentally [1]. The quality of
the interferimetric phase is good if 0.8 < γmean ≤ 1. On
the contrary, 0 ≤ γmean ≤ 0.4 means that the noise is
heavy and the filter window size needs to be increased
1094 Chinese Journal of Electronics
to suppress noise. With the decrease of γmean , the filter
window size will increase accordingly, to enhance noise
suppression.
According to formula (9), CF1(m, n) has three dis-
crete values, 0, 1, and 2, which represents the filtering
difficulty of filter window centered on pixel (m, n).
Therefore, different filtering strategies and different fil-
tering window size centered on (m, n) are chosen for
each pixel according to CF1(m, n).
1) For CF1(m, n) = 1, Goldstein filter based on
LFF compensation
CF1(m, n) = 1 means that the noise level and ter-
rain slope in the pixel (m, n) are moderate. By tradeoff
between noise suppression and computation burden, the
LFF compensation is needed, so the Goldstein filter
method based on LFF compensation is adopted, and
the LFF estimation window size is equal to filter win-
dow size according to formula (10). Considering that
the noise and slope information are both moderate in
this case, the filter window size of the Goldstein filter
method based on LFF compensation equals to the ba-
sic filter window size window , which means
mid_w = window , CF1(m, n) = 1 (14)
2) For CF1(m, n) = 2, NL-InSAR filter based on
LFF compensation
CF1(m, n) = 2 means that the noise level and ter-
rain slope in the pixel (m, n) are relatively higher. Usu-
ally, this means dense fringes and heavy noise, which
increases the filtering difficulty compared with the first
case CF1(m, n) = 1. In this case, an NL-InSAR filter-
ing method based on LFF compensation is adopted,
which has great fringe detail preservation and noise
suppression capabilities while heavy calculation burden.
For the NL-InSAR filtering method based on LFF
compensation, the LFF estimation window size is also
equal to window . To ensure the fringe continuity of adja-
cent pixel, the filter window size span of different filter
methods should not be too large, otherwise it will bring
additional LFF estimation error. In the case CF1(m,
n) = 2, due to the fringe is denser than that in the case
CF1(m, n) = 1, to ensure the accuracy of LFF estima-
tion, the filter window size needs to be slightly reduced.
Therefore, the filter window size is calculated by
min_w = window − 1, CF1(m, n) = 2 (15)
3) For CF1(m, n) = 0, Goldstein filter
CF1(m, n) = 0 means that the noise and terrain
slope are lower. Compared with CF1(m, n) = 2 and
CF1(m, n) = 1, the filtering difficulty is greatly re-
duced. In this case, most filtering methods can achieve
satisfactory noise suppression effects while preserving
2023
the fringe details. Therefore, the Goldstein filtering
method is chosen for its high calculation efficiency, and
the filter window size can be slightly increased. So, the
filter window size is
max_w = window + 1, CF1(m, n) = 0 (16)
3. Adaptive LFF estimation and compensa-
tion
In the case of CF1(m, n) = 2 and CF1(m, n) = 1,
the LFF is estimated and removed before filtering, so
the noise can be effectively filtered out with little loss of
fringes detail. In the traditional LFF estimation meth-
od [33], the size of the estimation window is fixed and
LFF is assumed to be linear. However, for complicated
and changeable terrain, LFF is generally nonlinear, in
which case linear LFF compensation may cause terrain
information loss during filtering. An adaptive LFF es-
timation and compensation method is proposed accord-
ing to the complexity factors. To deal with the adverse
impact of phase noise on LFF, prefiltering is employed
before LFF estimation, then nonlinear or linear LFF es-
timation is performed adaptively to the terrain.
The complexity scalar CF2(m, n), which reflects
the noise level and terrain slope information, is thus
defined as
CF2(m, n)
1 − γ2 (m, n) + PDV2 (m, n) + MPG2 (m, n)
= (17)
3
where
1 ∑∑
k k
γ2 (m, n) = γ(i, j) (18)
k × k i=1 j=1
1 ∑∑
k k
PDV2 (m, n) = PDV(i, j) (19)
k × k i=1 j=1
1 ∑∑
k k
MPG2 (m, n) = MPG(i, j) (20)
k × k i=1 j=1
where γ2 (m, n), PDV2 (m, n) and MPG2 (m, n) repres-
ent the mean value of γ(i, j), PDV(i, j), and MPG(i, j)
in the k × k filter window centered on pixel (m, n) re-
spectively. And the values of γ2 (m, n), PDV2 (m, n), and
MPG2 (m, n) are within [0, 1]. Therefore, CF2(m, n) is a
continuous value within [0, 1], which is used to instruct
the adaptive LFF estimation and calculate the filter
parameters.
1) Prefilter with variable window size before LFF
estimation
When CF1(m, n) = 2 and CF1(m, n) = 1, it is
known that the fringes are relatively dense and LFF
compensation needs to be performed in the filter win-
 A Novel Adaptive InSAR Phase Filtering Method Based on Complexity Factors
dow. To improve the accuracy of LFF estimation, ad-
aptive mean filter is implemented as prefilter, whose
window size is determined by CF2(m, n) as
 {
 7 × 7, 0.6 < CF2(m, n) ≤ 1
prefilter_win = 5 × 5, 0.2 < CF2(m, n) ≤ 0.6

3 × 3, 0 ≤ CF2(m, n) ≤ 0.2
(21)
Since prefilter is performed within the filter win-
dow mid_w or min_w , therefore, it is necessary to en-
sure that the prefilter window size prefilter_win is
smaller than mid_w or min_w . Also prefilter_win can-
not be too large, otherwise it will reduce the estimation
sensitivity. In addition, prefilter_win should be small to
ensure the continuity of the LFF estimation value [26].
So prefilter_win varies from 3 × 3 to 7 × 7, which is
small enough for most interferogram.
CF2(m, n) is proportional to the noise level and
terrain slope in the filter window. Conversely, correla-
tion coefficient is inversely proportional to the noise
level. The boundary values 0.2 and 0.6 of CF2(m, n) are
set according to the boundary values 0.8 and 0.4 of cor-
relation coefficient in formula (13) respectively. There-
fore, the areas of heavy noise will be prefiltered with
larger windows.
It should be noted that prefilter with variable win-
dow size will improve the LFF estimation accuracy
without losing details of the interferogram as it is not
used for phase filter but only for LFF estimation.
2) Adaptive prominent fringe components estima-
tion
The fringes are often nonlinear in complicated ter-
rain. If only the linear fringe is removed, the residual
fringe will hamper the phase filtering. Several linear or
nonlinear LFF estimation methods have been proposed
over the past years. However, the linear LFF estima-
tion methods cannot accurately compensate the fringe
frequency in areas with complicated terrain, which lim-
its the ability of noise suppression in dense fringe areas.
The nonlinear LFF estimation method [37] breaks
through the first-order limitation of fringe frequency by
performing weighted least squares phase unwrapping,
which may affect the filtering result. Here, prominent
fringe components estimation method is presented and
the linear or nonlinear fringe is compensated adaptively.
The prominent fringe component is estimated by
extracting the prominent frequency components of
phase in the frequency domain. Implement 2-D FFT in
local window to obtain the interferometric phase spec-
trum as follows:
S (u, v) = FFT (In (m, n)) (22)
where In = exp (jφn ) is the complex form of the noisy
1095
phase. The components with the amplitude of the spec-
trum greater than the threshold are retained, and lower
than the threshold is set to zero.
′ S(u, v), |S(u, v)| ≥ b
S (u, v) = (23)
0, |S(u, v)| < b
where b ∈ (0, max (|S (u, v) |)]. b = max (|S (u, v) |) means
extracting the linear phase. The smaller the value of b ,
the richer the nonlinear phase details. But if the value
of b is too small, the extracted phase will contain part
of the phase noise. Therefore, it is necessary to select a
reasonable threshold to effectively distinguish the prom-
inent fringe spectrum from the noise spectrum.
It is proposed that b = max(|S(u, v)|) × 97% is be-
neficial to estimate the nonlinear fringes more precisely
in [42]. When CF1(m, n) = 2 and CF1(m, n) = 1, the
interferometric fringes are complicated and changeable,
therefore, in our methods, the threshold is set to
b = max(|S(u, v)|) × (100−X)%, X ∈ [1, 3] (24)
Sorting the spectrum amplitude in descending or-
der, the value of X is determined by the complexity of
the terrain, which is more adaptable to different scen-
arios. When 0 ≤ CF2(m, n) ≤ 0.2, the prominent fringe
is approximately equal to the linear fringe, so we set
X = 1, that is b = max(|S(u, v)|) × 99% , so as to avoid
the noise spectrum. In the case of more complicated ter-
rain, 0.6 < CF2(m, n) ≤ 1, the nonlinear phase details
are richer, so the prominent fringe can be better extrac-
ted by taking X = 3, which means b = max(|S(u, v)|)×
97%.
The complex form of the prominent phase compon-
ent in the local window is shown as
I ′ m (m, n) = FFT−1 (S ′ (u, v)) (25)
φm (m, n) = arg (exp(I ′ m (m, n))) (26)
The residual phase φr is obtained by removing the
prominent phase φm from the noisy phase φn , which
can be expressed as
φr = arg (exp(j(φn − φm ))) (27)
When CF1(m, n) = 2 or CF1(m, n) = 1, through
the above steps, the adaptive LFF compensation are
performed in the filter window centered on pixel (m, n).
Finally, the filtered interferometric phase φf consists of
the removed phase φm and the filtered residual phase
φrf .
4. Adaptive filter parameters
Complexity scalar CF2(m, n) is also used to calcu-
late the adaptive filter parameters in the different filter-
ing methods.
1096 Chinese Journal of Electronics
1) For CF1(m, n) = 2, residual phase NL-InSAR
filtering based on LFF compensation
For CF1(m, n) = 2, NL-InSAR filtering is per-
formed on the residual phase. In the NL-InSAR filter
method [19], the weights are determined by the similar-
ity between the neighboring pixel blocks, and the calcu-
lation is related to the Euclidean distance of neighbor-
ing pixel blocks and smoothing parameter h(m, n). The
filtering effect of NL-InSAR filter method is greatly af-
fected by the smoothing parameter h(m, n), which is
closely related to the decay speed of the weight function.
Usually a smaller h(m, n) is beneficial to the preser-
vation of fringes details, and a larger h(m, n) can im-
prove the noise suppression ability. In [42], the smooth-
ing parameter h(m, n) = 10σn · γ · (1 + f ′ x2 +f ′ y 2 )−1/2 ,
which is jointly defined by the noise standard deviation
σn , the correlation coefficient γ and the residual phase
( slope of the area are low. To improve the calculation ef-
fringe frequency (f x, f y). The value of γ · 1 + f ′ x2 +
′ ′
)−1/2
f ′ y2 is within (0,1). Since the residual phase fringe
frequency (f ′ x, f ′ y) need to be estimated, this method
is time-consuming, and may introduce fringe frequency
estimation errors.
Therefore, to ensure the fringe detail preservation
and noise suppression effect at the same time, the
smoothing parameter h(m, n) is adaptively calculated by
h(m, n) = 10σn × h′ (m, n)
h′ (m, n) = 0.7 + 0.3 × (1 − CF2(m, n)) (28)
The larger CF2(m, n) means denser fringes and
heavier noise. CF2(m, n) varies from 0 to 1, so the value
range of h′ (m, n) is within (0.7,1). Here the minimum
value of h′ (m, n) is set as 0.7 because the residual phase
after LFF compensation is so sparse that the smooth-
ing parameter h(m, n) can be larger. For the areas with
larger CF2(m, n), 1 − CF2(m, n) is smaller, which is
more conducive to preserving fringe details. Therefore,
CF2(m, n) is used to adjust the smoothing parameter
h(m, n) to gain a tradeoff between fringe preservation
and noise suppression.
2) For CF1(m, n) = 1, residual phase Goldstein fil-
tering based on LFF compensation
Goldstein filtering is performed on the residual
phase after removing the LFF. Goldstein filter method
[21] converts the interferometric phase from the spatial
domain to the frequency domain, and then smooths the
frequency spectrum. The filter parameter αr (m, n) in-
dicates the extent to which the spectrum is smoothed.
For Goldstein filter, the smoothing effect becomes
more intense with the increase of the filter parameter
αr (m, n), whereas the ability of fringe detail preserva-
tion reduces. In order to balance the details loss and
noise suppression ability, the traditional Goldstein fil-
2023
ter parameter is usually set to 0.5. Therefore, in our
method, αr (m, n) is adaptive to CF2(m, n) by
αr (m, n) = αrmin + (1 − αrmin ) × (1 − CF2(m, n)) (29)
Given that the area with CF1(m, n) = 1 has mod-
erate noise and slope, The LFF compensation is per-
formed before residual phase filter and the density of
fringes has decreased, so the filter parameter αr (m, n)
can be a little larger. αrmin = 0.5 is set to ensure the fil-
ter intensity, and 1 − CF2(m, n) is also used to adjust
the fringe detail preservation
( ) ability. The filter para-
meter αr (m, n) ∈ αrmin , 1 , therefore the filter intensity
can be adaptively adjusted according to CF2(m, n).
3) For CF1(m, n) = 0, noisy phase Goldstein filter-
ing
For CF1(m, n) = 0, the noise level and terrain
ficiency, Goldstein filter is adopted in noisy phase
without removing LFF, its filter parameter αn (m, n) is
adaptively determined by
win
αn (m, n) = 1 − γmean (m, n) × (1 − CF2(m, n)) (30)
win
where γmean (m, n) is the mean value of pseudo coher-
ence coefficient in the filter window centered on pixel
(m, n). The Goldstein filter parameter in [27] is only
changed with the noise level. To make the adaptive fil-
ter parameter more robust, in our method, the filter
parameter αn (m, n) changes with the noise level and
win
terrain slope simultaneously because of γmean (m, n)×
(1−CF2(m, n)). In the case CF1(m, n) = 0, γmean win
(m, n)
is larger and CF2(m, n) is smaller. The minimum value
of αn (m, n) is 1 − γmean
win
(m, n), which can prevent over-
filtering.
III. Results and Analysis
In this section, to validate the proposed method,
experiments are performed on both simulated and real
interferograms, and results are compared with those of
several recognized and representative methods. The ef-
fectiveness of the three proposed adaptive strategies
based on the complexity factors is demonstrated by the
first experiment with simulated data. In the second ex-
periment, the superiority of the proposed method in
terms of noise suppression and fringe detail preserva-
tion is verified by comparison with the three adaptive
filter methods —The slope adaptive filter [33] and the
improved Goldstein filter [27] can implement adaptive
phase filter based on fringe frequency and correlation
coefficient, respectively. The improved NL-InSAR filter
[42] is one of the latest adaptive filter method proposed
in 2021. Finally, the real data are processed to further
 A Novel Adaptive InSAR Phase Filtering Method Based on Complexity Factors 1097

verify the robustness and superiority of the proposed
method in comparison with three existing methods.
1. The first experiment to validate the ad-
aptive strategies
Two SAR single-look complex images are simu-
lated according to certain SAR geometry and DEM
data [43]. The noise flattened phase and corresponding
real phase are shown in Fig.2. In order to verify the ef-
fectiveness of the three adaptive strategies in the pro-
posed method, the three adaptive strategies are sequen-
tially replaced with fixed strategies, results are shown in
the Fig.3.

(rad) (rad)
3 3
20 20
2 2
40 40
1 1
60 60

80 0 80 0

100 −1 100 −1

120 −2 120 −2
140 140
−3 −3
20 40 60 80 100 120 140 20 40 60 80 100 120 140
(a) Real phase (b) Noisy flattened phase

Fig. 2. Simulated data 1.

(rad) (rad)
3 3
20 20
2 2
40 40
1 1
60 60
0 0
80 80

100 −1 100 −1

120 −2 120 −2
140 140
−3 −3
20 40 60 80 100 120 140 20 40 60 80 100 120 140
(a) The first fixed strategy (b) The second fixed strategy
(rad) (rad)
3 3
20 20
2 2
40 40
1 1
60 60
0 0
80 80

100 −1 100 −1

120 −2 120 −2
140 140
−3 −3
20 40 60 80 100 120 140 20 40 60 80 100 120 140
(c) The third fixed strategy (d) Proposed method

Fig. 3. Filtered results using different adaptive strategies.

Clearly, the filter result of proposed method shown opt NL-InSAR filtering method based on LFF compens-
in Fig.3(d) contains more fringe detail than those in ation for the interferogram, but the LFF estimation and
Fig.3(a), (b), and (c). The first fixed strategy is to ad- filter parameters are still adaptive. It can be seen that
1098 Chinese Journal of Electronics 2023

without adaptive selection of filtering method, result in filter, the Improved Goldstein filter and the Improved
Fig.3(a) presents more phase residues. The second fixed NL-InSAR filter are implemented as comparison. The
strategy is that the LFF estimation window and the noisy flattened phase and corresponding real phase and
prefilter window are fixed to 8 × 8 and 5 × 5 respect- are shown in Fig.4.
ively, X = 1 is adopted to extract prominent fringe, the
(rad)
filter results is shown in Fig.3(b). The third fixed 3
strategy is that the filter parameters h(m, n), αr (m, n), 20
αn (m, n) are fixed to 0.5, and Fig.3(c) shows the filter 40
2
results. Without adaptive LFF estimation and adapt-
60 1
ive filter parameters, the fringe detail in Fig.3(b) and
80
Fig.3(c) are preserved not as good as in Fig.3(a) and 0
Fig.3(d). 100
In order to evaluate the filtered results, the per- 120 −1
formance of each filter is assessed by the number of 140
−2
phase residues, the edge preservation index (EPI) [31] 160
and the root mean square errors (RMSE) [26]. The EPI −3
180
and RMSE are calculated by 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180

∑ ( |φf (m, n) − φf (m + 1, n)| )

(a) Real phase
(rad)
+ |φf (m, n) − φf (m, n + 1)| 3
EPI = ∑ ( ) (31) 20
|φreal (m, n) − φreal (m + 1, n)|
2
+ |φreal (m, n) − φreal (m, n + 1)| 40
60 1
RMSE
√∑ ∑ 80
2
|arg (exp (j (φf (m, n) − φreal (m, n))))| 0
= 100
M ×N 120 −1
(32)
140
−2
where φf (m, n) and φreal (m, n) represent the filtered 160
phase and the real phase respectively. M × N repres- −3
180
ents the total number of pixels in the interferogram. 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180
An EPI closer to 1 means better fringe and edge (b) Noisy flattened phase
preservation. EPI > 1 means that fringe details are false Fig. 4. Simulated data 2.
or more noise on the filtered phase, whereas EPI < 1
As can be seen in Fig.4, the fringe density is vari-
means the fringe details are damaged. Smaller RMSE
able, which is sparse on the right side and dense on the
represents a better noise suppression effect.
left side. The terrain is relatively flat in sparse fringe
The evaluation results are shown in Table 1. It is
areas and the terrain is more complicated in dense
obvious that the three adaptive strategies in the pro-
fringe area, which increases the difficulty of filtering.
posed method have improved fringe details preserva-
In order to facilitate comparison, the window size
tion and noise suppression.
of the other three filtering methods is same with that of
Table 1. Evaluation results of simulated data1 CF1(m, n) = 1 in the proposed method, i.e., win_size =
mid_w . In Fig.5, we show the corresponding filtered
Interferogram Residues EPI RMSE (rad)
Real phase 1 1 0 results of different methods. In each group, the left im-
Noisy flattened phase 3270 7.8684 1.1425 age is the filtered phase, and the right one is the corres-
The first fixed strategy 4 1.0620 0.1078 ponding phase error between the filtered and real phase.
The second fixed strategy 4 1.0995 0.1096 As shown in Fig.5(a) and Fig.5(b), in the flat area
The third fixed strategy 3 1.1029 0.1068 on the right, the slope adaptive filter has a better noise
Proposed method 1 1.0165 0.1011
suppression effect, but in the dense fringe area on the
left, the fringe details are damaged, so the phase error
2. The second experiment to validate su- is larger. In Fig.5(c) and Fig.5(d), although the overall
periority phase error of the improved Goldstein filter is smaller,
In this part, the superiority of the proposed meth- it can be clearly seen that the fringe edge preservation
od is evaluated on simulated data. The slope adaptive ability is poor, and the noise in some areas is still large.
 A Novel Adaptive InSAR Phase Filtering Method Based on Complexity Factors 1099

(rad) (rad)
3 3
20 20
2 2
40 40
60 1 60 1
80 80
0 0
100 100
120 −1 120 −1
140 140
−2 −2
160 160
180 −3 180 −3
20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180
(a) Slope adaptive filtered result (b) Slope adaptive filtered phase error
(rad) (rad)
3 3
20 20
2 2
40 40
60 1 60 1
80 80
0 0
100 100
120 −1 120 −1
140 140
−2 −2
160 160
180 −3 180 −3
20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180
(c) Improved Goldstein filtered result (d) Improved Goldstein filtered phase error
(rad) (rad)
3 3
20 20
2 2
40 40
60 1 60 1
80 80
0 0
100 100
120 −1 120 −1
140 140
−2 −2
160 160
180 −3 180 −3
20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180
(e) Improved NL-InSAR filtered result (f) Improved NL-InSAR filtered phase error
(rad) (rad)
3 3
20 20
2 2
40 40
60 1 60 1
80 80
0 0
100 100
120 −1 120 −1
140 140
−2 −2
160 160
180 −3 180 −3
20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180
(g) Proposed method filtered result (h) Proposed method filtered phase error

Fig. 5. Filtered result and corresponding phase error.

1100 Chinese Journal of Electronics 2023

For the improved NL-InSAR filter, as it can be ob- 4

Real phase
served in Fig.5(e) and Fig.5(f), there are some error 3
Noisy phase
points at the edges of the image. Comparing the result 2 Slope

Phase error (rad)

Goldstein
of the proposed method in Fig.5(g) and Fig.5(h) with 1
the above three filter methods, the proposed methods 0
show a good performance in noise suppression and −1
fringe details preservation. The phase error diagrams −2
clearly show that the proposed method outperforms NL-InSAR
−3 Proposed
other filter methods.
−4
The quantitative evaluation results are shown in 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
Table 2. The slope adaptive filter has obvious over- Range (pixels)
filter phenomenon, and the EPI is far less than 1. Al- Fig. 6. Phase error of different filter methods in cross-sec-
though its residue number is close to that of the pro- tion A.
posed method, it is at the cost of fringe detail loss, res-
in the white rectangle are shown in Fig.7. It can be seen
ulting in a larger RMSE. The RMSE of the improved
that the fringe in Fig.7(b), contaminated with heavy
Goldstein filter has been reduced, but there are more
noise, represents the complicated terrain of ETNA Vol-
residues and poor fringe detail preservation in areas
cano. And the mean pseudo coherence coefficient is only
with steep terrain and low coherence. For the improved
0.5152.
NL-InSAR filter, the fringe details are damaged in the
(rad)
dense fringe area, resulting in residual points. Com-
3
pared with the other three methods, the EPI of the pro-
50
posed method is closer to 1, hence, the ability of fringe 2
details preservation is much better. Moreover, the 100
residues and RMSE of the proposed method are the 1
150
smallest because of an excellent noise suppression per-
200 0
formance, proving that the proposed method achieves
the best balance between noise suppression and fringe 250
−1
preservation compared with the other three methods. 300
−2
Table 2. Evaluation results of simulated data 2 350

400 −3
Interferogram Residues EPI RMSE (rad) Time (s)
50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
Real phase 1 1 0 –
(a) Noisy phase
Noisy flattened phase 7258 7.9945 1.0807 – (rad)
Slope adaptive filter 1 0.9328 0.3020 36
3
Improved Goldstein filter 6 1.1004 0.2069 9 20
Improved NL-InSAR filter 2 1.0684 0.1946 45 2
40
Proposed method 0 1.0410 0.1750 30
60
1
80
As shown in Fig.4(b), “A” represents the area
100 0
where phase distortion often occurs. The cross-section
of phase error in “A” is extracted to validate the ro- 120
−1
bustness of the proposed method in filtering the steep 140
terrain region. As clearly shown in Fig.6, the filtered 160 −2
phase error of the proposed method is much closer to 180
zero than the other filter methods, which proves that 200 −3
20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
the proposed method has a better performance on the (b) Enlarged areas
edge preservation than the other three methods.
Fig. 7. ETNA Volcano.
3. Experiments with real data
In this part, two sets of real data are employed to The filtering results of Fig.7(d) with the slope ad-
investigate the performance of the proposed method. aptive filter, the improved Goldstein filter, the im-
1) ERS SAR data proved NL-InSAR filter, and the proposed method are
ERS SAR images over the ETNA Volcano in shown in Fig.8. In Fig.8(a), due to the LFF estimated
September and October 2000 is used as the test data. by the slope adaptive method is not accurate enough,
The interferometric noisy phase and the enlarged area resulting in damage of the fringes edges, which causes
 A Novel Adaptive InSAR Phase Filtering Method Based on Complexity Factors 1101

more residues. As can be seen in Fig.8(b) for the im-
proved Goldstein filter, the fringes in the dense fringe
area are ambiguous, especially in areas with a heavy
noise. Comparing Fig.8(c) with Fig.8(a) and Fig.8(b), it
is seen that the fringe preservation of the improved NL-
InSAR filter is much better than the slope adaptive fil-
ter and the improved Goldstein filter in dense fringe
areas. In Fig.8(d), the proposed method shows a better
performance in fringe detail preservation and the fringe
in steep terrain is the most continuous.

(rad) (rad)
3 3
20 20
40 2 40 2
60 60
1 1
80 80
100 0 100 0
120 120
−1 −1
140 140
160 −2 160 −2
180 180
200 −3 200 −3
20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
(a) Slope adaptive filter (b) Improved Goldstein filter
(rad) (rad)
3 3
20 20
40 2 40 2
60 60
1 1
80 80
100 0 100 0
120 120
−1 −1
140 140
160 −2 160 −2
180 180
200 −3 200 −3
20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
(c) Improved NL-InSAR filter (d) Proposed method

Fig. 8. Filtered results of Fig.7(b) with four methods.

A quantitative evaluation is also performed to com- where φf (m, n) represents the filtered phase, and
pare the filtered results. The number of residues, the φf (m + i, n + j) is the filtered phase of eight adjacent
sum of phase difference (SPD) [44] and the phase stand- pixels.
ard deviation (PSD) [45] are employed as metrics. Com- The PSD of the interferogram is calculated by
pared with residues, the SPD and PSD can more accur- v
ately reflect the smoothness of the filtered phase. It is u M N
u∑ ∑
generally believed that smaller number of residues, SPD u (φf (m, n) − φ̄f (m, n))
2
u (35)
and PSD indicate a smoother phase with less noise. t
PSD = m=1 n=1
The SPD for the interferogram is the sum of M ×N −1
APD(m, n), which is expressed by
where φ̄f (m, n) is the linear phase in a window of size
∑
M ∑
N
3 × 3, and M × N represents the size of interferogram.
SPD = APD(m, n) (33)
m=1 n=1
The evaluation results are shown in Table 3. As
can be seen from Table 3, the number of residues are
where APD(m, n) is calculated as
reduce by all methods. However, because of the fixed
1 ∑
1 ∑1 window used in slope adaptive filter, the loss of detail is
APD(m, n) = × |φf (m, n) severe in the dense fringe area, so its residues are more
8 i=−1 j=−1
than the proposed method. The improved Goldstein fil-
− φf (m + i, n + j)| (34) ter and the improved NL-InSAR filter have the prob-
1102 Chinese Journal of Electronics 2023

lem of under-filtering in the low-coherence area, result- posed method. Again, the proposed method shows a
ing in a large SPD and PSD, and the residues of im- good improvement in terms of noise suppression, the
proved Goldstein filter is far more than that of the pro- number of residues, SPD and PSD are greatly reduced.

Table 3. Evaluation results of real data1

Interferogram Residues SPD × 104 (rad) PSD (rad) Time (s)

Noisy phase 7455 6.3222 1.4953 –
Slope adaptive filter 19 1.8761 0.3273 40
Improved Goldstein filter 41 1.9855 0.4592 12
Improved NL-InSAR filter 13 1.9320 0.4289 51
Proposed method 4 1.8317 0.3109 25

2) Millimeter-wave airborne InSAR data
The millimeter-wave airborne InSAR data are em-
ployed to conduct another experiment. The interfero-
grams are provided by Beijing Institude of Radio Meas-
urement, and the test site is situated in Zhaotong, Yun-
nan Province, Midwest China. The lower left corner of
the interferogram is a residential area containing a lot
of architectural details, and the upper right corner is a
mountainous area, with partial shadows and layovers.
The interferometric noisy phase and the area bounded
by rectangle are shown in Fig.9.
The slope adaptive filter, the improved Goldstein
filter, the improved NL-InSAR filter and the proposed
method are performed on Fig.9(b), and the filtered
phase of all four methods are shown in Fig.10. The
quantitative evaluation is given in Table 4.
Since the airborne data have relatively high SNR
and sparse fringes, all four methods have achieved good
noise suppression effect. From Fig.10 and Table 4, the
fixed window in the slope adaptive filter causes the
fringe details of the residential area to be completely
filtered out. And the fringe edges are destroyed, result-
ing in residues. Compared with the slope adaptive filter,
the SPD and PSD of the improved Goldstein filter and
the improved NL-InSAR filter are reduced. However, in
Figs.10(b) and (c), the dense fringes in the upper right
corner where there is a mountainous shaded area, is
severely damaged because the improved Goldstein filter
and the improved NL-InSAR filter do not perform LFF
compensation before filtering. The filtered result in
Fig.10(d) and its quantitative evaluation in Table 4
show that the proposed method not only effectively
suppresses noise, but also has the best performance in
preserving fringe details.
It can be seen from the calculation efficiency in the
tables, the filter speed of the improved Goldstein filter
is always the fastest due to the frequency domain filter.
The improved NL-InSAR filter has the slowest filter
speed because twice LFF estimation is performed. The
slope adaptive filter also requires LFF estimation for
the entire interferogram. The proposed method adopts
adaptive filter strategy, LFF estimation is not needed
when CF 1(m, n) = 0, which represents the noise level
and fringe density are small. Therefore, the calculation
efficiency is improved compared with the slope adapt-
ive filter and the improved NL-InSAR filter.
IV. Conclusions
With the increasing resolution of SAR imaging,
there will be much more rich terrain types and detailed

(rad)
3
20
40 2
60
1
80
100 0
120
−1
140
160 −2
180
200 −3
20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
(a) Noisy phase (b) Enlarged areas

Fig. 9. Millimeter-wave SAR data.

 A Novel Adaptive InSAR Phase Filtering Method Based on Complexity Factors 1103

(rad) (rad)
3 3
20 20
40 2 40 2
60 60
1 1
80 80
100 0 100 0
120 120
−1 −1
140 140
160 −2 160 −2
180 180
200 −3 200 −3
20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
(a) Slope adaptive filter (b) Improved Goldstein filter
(rad) (rad)
3 3
20 20
40 2 40 2
60 60
1 1
80 80
100 0 100 0
120 120
−1 −1
140 140
160 −2 160 −2
180 180
200 −3 200 −3
20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
(c) Improved NL-InSAR filter (d) Proposed method

Fig. 10. Filtered results of Fig.9(b) with four methods.

Table 4. Evaluation results of real data 2

Interferogram Residues SPD × 104 (rad) PSD (rad) Time (s)

Noisy phase 6619 4.4042 1.4268 –
Slope adaptive filter 19 0.8478 0.3624 32
Improved Goldstein filter 20 0.7319 0.2900 12
Improved NL-InSAR filter 21 0.8113 0.3243 38
Proposed method 5 0.7286 0.2858 29

terrain information in the interferogram than ever.
What is more, heavy noise caused by SAR imaging geo-
metry and complicated terrain background brings a
huge challenge to phase filtering. However, most of the
current phase filtering methods cannot simultaneously
take into account the three aspects of suppressing noise
suppression effectively, preserving terrain details adapt-
ively and improving calculation efficiency. Thus, a nov-
el adaptive InSAR phase filtering method based on
complexity factors is proposed in this paper. The com-
plexity factors can characterize the noise level and ter-
rain slope information of the interferogram effectively,
which are used to guide the adaptive selection of suit-
able and effective filtering strategies for different areas
in the interferogram.
The proposed method is presented in detail firstly,
and after that, the proposed method is tested on simu-
lated data and real data sets from ETNA Volcano and
Yunnan Province, mountainous area in western China.
By comparing its performance with the other three re-
cognized and representative phase filtering method, it
has been demonstrated that the proposed method of-
fers the best filtering results. The adaptive selection of
filtering strategy could improve calculation efficiency.
Moreover, the adaptive LFF estimation and adaptive
filter parameters based on complexity factors not only
can effectively suppress noise, but also have excellent
performance in preserving fringe details, the effective-
ness and superiority of proposed method are validated.
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XU Huaping received the B.S.
degree in electronic engineering in
1998 and the Ph.D. degree in communic-
ation and information system in 2003
both from Beihang University. She is
currently a Professor with the School of
Electronic and Information Engineering,
Beihang University. She has published
more than 100 journal and conference pa-
pers, and a research monograph about signal processing. Her cur-
rent research interests include SAR interferometry, differential
SAR interferometry, image processing, and radar waveform
design. (Email: xuhuaping@buaa.edu.cn)
WANG Yuan (corresponding
author) received the B.S. degree in
School of Information and Communica-
tion Engineering from Communication
University of China, Beijing, China, in
2019. She is currently working toward
the Ph.D. degree with the School of Elec-
tronic and Information Engineering, Bei-
hang University. Her current research in-
terests include SAR interferometry, and interferometric SAR im-
age processing. (Email: wyuan@buaa.edu.cn)
1105
LI Chunsheng received the
Ph.D. degree in signal and information
processing from Beihang University in
1998. Since 2005, he is a Professor with
the School of Electronics and Informa-
tion Engineering, Beihang University. He
has authored more than 100 journal and
conference papers and four books. His re-
search interests include analysis and sim-
ulation of SAR satellite, highresolution image formation, and mul-
timodal remote sensing data fusion. (Email: lics@buaa.edu.cn)
ZENG Guobing received B.S.
degree in aircraft engineering from Bei-
hang University in 2019. He is currently
pursuing the Ph.D. degree in signal and
information processing in the School of
Electronic and Information Engineering,
Beihang University. His current research
interests include SAR interferometry and
Differential SAR interferometry.
(Email: zengguobing@buaa.edu.cn)
LI Shuo received the M.S. de-
gree from China University of Mining
and Technologyì in 2015 and Ph.D. de-
gree from the School of Electronic and
Information Engineering, Beihang Uni-
versity in 2021. He is currently working
in the Nanjing Research Institute of Elec-
tronics Technology, and is mainly en-
gaged in the design of space-based inter-
ferometric SAR system. (Email: shuo201@buaa.edu.cn)
LI Shuang received the Ph.D.
degree in communication and informa-
tion system from Beihang University in
2013. She is currently a Researcher in
Beijing Institute of Radio Measurement.
She has published more than 20 academ-
ic papers and applied for 5 patents. Her
current research interests include space-
based interferometric SAR system, data
processing and high-precision 3D information application techno-
logy. (Email: lishuang0108@sohu.com)
REN Chong recieved the B.S.
degree in materials science and engineer-
ing from University of Science and Tech-
nology Beijing in 2003 and Ph.D. degree
in materials science and engineering from
Tsinghua University in 2012. She is cur-
rently a Deputy Chief Designer in the
China Academy of Launch Vehicle Tech-
nology. Her current research interests fo-
cus on thermal protection design for reusable launch verhicle.
(Email: 674686864@qq.com)