Accuracy assessment of TanDEM-X IDEM using airborne LiDAR on the area of Poland

The TerraSAR-X add-on for Digital Elevation Measurement (TanDEM-X) mission launched in 2010 is another programme – after the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) in 2000 – that uses space-borne radar interferometry to build a global digital surface model. This article presents the accuracy assessment of the TanDEM-X intermediate Digital Elevation Model (IDEM) provided by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) under the project “Accuracy assessment of a Digital Elevation Model based on TanDEM-X data” for the southwestern territory of Poland. The study area included: open terrain, urban terrain and forested terrain. Based on a set of 17,498 reference points acquired by airborne laser scanning, the mean errors of average heights and standard deviations were calculated for areas with a terrain slope below 2 degrees, between 2 and 6 degrees and above 6 degrees. The absolute accuracy of the IDEM data for the analysed area, expressed as a root mean square error (Total RMSE), was 0.77 m.