Analysis of amplitude ratios in SAR-polarimetry

Kurzfassung

The progress in the field of polarimetry-theory has recently kept pace with the growing availability of polarimetric SAR data from newly operated sensors by different research institutions. Some of the new proposed mathematical techniques (for example those developed by Cloude and Pottier) are very refined; they can take into account almost all the aspects of the scattering mechanisms which characterize a scene and provide a way to recognize them. Nevertheless, information may be retrieved more practically, and simply, by the scattering matrix elements (i. e., the values directly measured by the sensor) especially when one smartly uses some ratios which enhance the relative behaviour of the co- and cross-polarized components. Hence, the need of more advanced (and time-costing) methods is not always indispensable. In this paper, an analysis of polarimetric SAR data will be presented which uses just this approach and an evaluation of the usefulness of these quantities will be given.