Abstract: Dam deformation monitoring is an important task to refrain from hazardous situation for dam and population. The use of Ground Based Synthetic Aperture Radar (GB-SAR) provides great potential for dam deformation monitoring due to its strong capability of large area and high accuracy. In this paper, a Fast-GBSAR based on the Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) technology is presented to monitor the dam deformation when the dam discharges water. The data acquisition speed of the Fast-GBSAR could achieve 7 second per set, compared with 5 minute per set acquisition speed of the IBIS system. Besides, the SAR image is also combined with the DEM model to evaluate the overall deformation of the dam. Analytical results show that dam monitoring based on Fast-GBSAR can be nearly in real time.

Key words: GB-SAR, FMCW, dam deformation measurement, accuracy analysis, 3D DEM