Spaceborne differential photogrammetry for control-free measurement of large-gradient deformation with structural immunity and a predictable accuracy envelope

Abstract

Optical satellite image correlation measures wide-area deformation in regimes where coherent interferometric synthetic aperture radar fails because displacement gradients are too large. However, standard pairwise workflows lack a pre-acquisition error budget and rely on extensive stable terrain. We formulate repeat-pass optical correlation as a differential estimation problem without surveyed ground control. Nominal georeferencing defines the coordinate frame, stable-area constraints and displacement priors resolve the datum, and surface displacement is estimated jointly with inter-epoch revisit-bias coefficients. The model yields a predictive accuracy envelope and calibrated per-point posterior uncertainty, bounds along-track uncertainty through a displacement prior, and represents pushbroom jitter using per-line revisit offsets. Simulations and Sentinel-2 and WorldView-2 experiments on the 2019 Ridgecrest earthquake, the 2023 Kahramanmaraş earthquake, and the Baltoro glacier validate the predicted noise floor, control-free accuracy margin, and leakage caused by view-angle and digital elevation model errors. The measured noise floor reaches approximately $0.05$ pixel at $10$,m ground sampling distance. With only five stable tiles, conventional destriping changes the estimated Baltoro trunk velocity from $106$ to $1251$myr$^{-1}$, whereas the prior-constrained estimate remains $87$myr$^{-1}$. Closure analysis attributes approximately $88\%$ of pair-error variance to individual scenes, consistent with $25{,}354$ ITS_LIVE glacier-velocity triplets. Three matching methods lead to the same conclusions. The framework therefore turns pairwise correlation into a robust measurement with a predictive error budget, reduced dependence on stable terrain, and conclusions independent of the matching method.