Spaceborne Transmitter - Stationary Receiver Bistatic SAR Polarimetry - Experimental Results

From simple scattering mechanism extraction and throughout more complex applications (e.g., land classification, disaster monitoring), polarimetry has become a key element for remote sensing. For the particular case of bistatic polarimetry, the development of a theoretical basis has not been yet aligned with a comprehensive experimental validation. At the moment, an exhaustive search across the polarimetric scientific literature will reveal that for true bistatic geometries (i.e., significant angular separation between transmitter and receiver), only a small number of qualitative investigations have been made and there is still work to be done. In the current paper, one of the most popular polarimetric decomposition methods (H - α) is applied to dual-pol VV-VH data, in both bistatic (space-surface geometry with ground-based receiver) and monostatic configurations. Images from both geometries are displaying a common, urban scene. Comparing the obtained results, objective observations are presented.