Generating Pseudo Quad-polarized SAR Images of Pursuit-monostatic TanDEM-X Data by Kennaugh Data Fusion

Abstract

The joint use of TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-X SAR sensors gains more and more interest. As each sensor has operationally only dual-polarization acquisition capabilities, this contribution presents a way of image combination by joining co- and cross-polarized SAR images of TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-X. The problem of co-registration of two complex data sets is realized by the fusion of geocoded Kennaugh elements. A selection of elements form the basis of the new so-called pseudo quad-polarized Kennaugh elements. It can be shown that though its reduced content the Pauli decomposition can be applied. This facilitates further investigations regarding the polarimetric content. Classifications carried out on full and quad-polarized data show just a small reduction of the overall classification accuracy (OA) of about one percent by a 94% OA.