Geodesic Distance Based Scattering Power Decomposition for Compact Polarimetric SAR Data

We propose a geodesic distance (GD)-based scattering power decomposition for compact polarimetric (CP) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data acquired over agricultural landscapes. The proposed technique decomposes the polarized portion of the total backscattered power in proportion to the normalized target similarity measures. The measures are derived from the GDs, which are computed between the Kennaugh matrices of observed and canonical targets (dihedral or trihedral). We observed a pseudo-power component in the double bounce power, which can be attributed to target irregularities. To compensate for the pseudo-power component, we proposed a compensation strategy by utilizing the CP radar vegetation index (CpRVI). The compensation factor assists in readjusting the polarized power components. The proposed approach was tested with real (RADARSAT Constellation Mission: RCM) and simulated (RADARSAT-2: RS2) hybrid CP data over agricultural sites in Canada. The effectiveness of the approach was demonstrated by comparing the decomposed powers with a recently proposed CP scattering power decomposition.