An analysis of volume decorrelation in polarimetric SAR interferometry

Abstract

Volume decorrelation is an aspect of SAR interferometry that is nowadays being actively investigated. It stems from the distribution in height of the backscattering cross-section above the chosen reference plane in the imaged scene and it widely affects interferometric coherence images, for example, in presence of forests or buildings. The interest in its reduction lies on the fact that "resolving" the volume decorrelation and fixing the exact position of the scattering centres in the resolution cell could lead to an estimation of the height of the observed distributed scatterers. In this paper, we will study the behaviour of volume decorrelation due to random volumes and stationary distributed targets, in particular considering the response of such targets to different polarizations by applying some decompositions of the scattering matrix measurements.