Reliability-adaptive graph-cut phase unwrapping for InSAR geohazard deformation monitoring

Phase unwrapping is critical for InSAR deformation retrieval, yet decorrelation, dense residues, and Itoh-condition violations reduce reliability in high-gradient geohazard scenes. To address these challenges, this study proposes EGCPU, a training-free, reliability-adaptive graph-cut method that estimates integer phase ambiguities on a pruned weighted graph constructed from coherence, wrapped gradients, and local circular dispersion. A Huber-penalized differential energy is minimized through bidirectional unit expansion – cut moves solved with Incremental Breadth-First Search max-flow. Evaluations using controlled simulations, two station-validated real-data cases, and an additional Kumamoto coseismic generalization test show that EGCPU improves phase-unwrapping stability in heterogeneous geohazard scenes. EGCPU achieves 5.44 rad RMSE and 0.80 SSIM in the highest-noise simulation, reduces Longs Peak RMSE by about 65% relative to SNAPHU and PUMA, and obtains 1.81 cm LOS RMSE against LOS-projected GNSS observations and 1.10 mm LOS MAE against LOS-projected extensometer measurements, supporting stable phase unwrapping in heterogeneous geohazard scenes.

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Publication Details

Journal
International Journal of Remote Sensing
Published
2026-07-30
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1080/01431161.2026.2709706
Primary Topic
Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Applications and Techniques
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00

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article

Reliability-adaptive graph-cut phase unwrapping for InSAR geohazard deformation monitoring

Haiwei Qiao, Jiangyuan Zeng, Yanan Bai, Siqing Xu et al.
International Journal of Remote Sensing
Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Applications and Techniques
article

Reliability-adaptive graph-cut phase unwrapping for InSAR geohazard deformation monitoring

Haiwei Qiao, Jiangyuan Zeng, Yanan Bai, Siqing Xu, Ping Zhang, Huadong Hu, Zhen Li, Hui Yuan
article en

Abstract

Phase unwrapping is critical for InSAR deformation retrieval, yet decorrelation, dense residues, and Itoh-condition violations reduce reliability in high-gradient geohazard scenes. To address these challenges, this study proposes EGCPU, a training-free, reliability-adaptive graph-cut method that estimates integer phase ambiguities on a pruned weighted graph constructed from coherence, wrapped gradients, and local circular dispersion. A Huber-penalized differential energy is minimized through bidirectional unit expansion – cut moves solved with Incremental Breadth-First Search max-flow. Evaluations using controlled simulations, two station-validated real-data cases, and an additional Kumamoto coseismic generalization test show that EGCPU improves phase-unwrapping stability in heterogeneous geohazard scenes. EGCPU achieves 5.44 rad RMSE and 0.80 SSIM in the highest-noise simulation, reduces Longs Peak RMSE by about 65% relative to SNAPHU and PUMA, and obtains 1.81 cm LOS RMSE against LOS-projected GNSS observations and 1.10 mm LOS MAE against LOS-projected extensometer measurements, supporting stable phase unwrapping in heterogeneous geohazard scenes.

International Journal of Remote Sensing
Electric Power Research Institute (US), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN), University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN), International Research Center of Big Data for Sustainable Development Goals (CN)
National Natural Science Foundation of China
Affordable and clean energy
Openalex Percentile: Top 5%
Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Applications and Techniques
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