Deformation Monitoring of High-Rise Building Clusters: Acquiring Deformation Coefficients by Combining Satellite Imagery and Persistent Scatterer Interferometry

Persistent Scatterer Interferometry (PSI) is a remote sensing measurement technology based on electromagnetic waves, capable of simultaneously monitoring deformations in large urban building complexes with millimeter-level precision. However, relying solely on the line of sight (LOS) deformation sequence based on a specific permanent scatterer cannot accurately analyze building deformations, particularly in cases where high-rise buildings may simultaneously experience various deformation components such as temperature-induced deformation, shrinkage, creep, and tilting. To accurately identify the deformation states of high-rise buildings, the paper begins by systematically summarizing three typical deformation patterns from the unique perspective of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites. These patterns include Pattern I, characterized by temperature-induced deformation alone, and Pattern II and Pattern III, which involve a combination of deformation in different directions relative to the SAR satellite in addition to temperature-induced deformation. To accurately monitor the LOS deformation of high-rise buildings, the paper introduces the concept of acquiring the evolutionary trends of temperature-related deformation coefficients and proposes a methodology for recognizing and quantifying deformation in high-rise buildings. Subsequently, this study utilized freely available Sentinel-1 satellite data to observe the deformation of nine high-rise buildings in Changsha, China. The research findings indicate that the thermal expansion coefficients of most high-rise buildings fall within the range of 6 ∼ 12 × 10⁻⁶/°C. High-rise buildings that have been constructed for more than ten years almost no longer experience significant shrinkage or creep, while new constructions may exhibit an initial shrinkage and creep of up to 1.2 × 10⁻⁴ mm/mm. Additionally, the study results demonstrate that super-tall buildings may exhibit centimeter-scale lateral deformations at their tops due to uneven shrinkage. Findings from the study indicate that the proposed method can achieve cost-effective and sustainable deformation monitoring of high-rise building clusters within a large urban area.