Analysis of a Fully Polarimetric Tomographic Time Series over Agricultural Crops for Monitoring Bio- and Geophysical Changes

Abstract

Synthetic aperture radar Tomography (TomoSAR) is a powerful tool to investigate the relationship between 3-D radar backscattering and physical properties of agricultural vegetation. Here, TomoSAR algorithms are used to separate the ground and volume backscattered signals, and to investigate their properties. The estimated TomoSAR parameters are then used to interpret the effect of physical changes on the electromagnetic scattering behavior as a function of species, phenological state at different radar frequencies. The experimental analysis is performed on a data set acquired by DLRs airborne sensor F-SAR over an agricultural area in Wallerfing (South-Germany) in 2014. The TomoSAR acquisitions cover different dates in the phenological cycle at X-, C- and L-band. Furthermore, measurements of the soil and plant parameters were collected simultaneously to the F-SAR flights