Exploring Novel Scattering Information from Polarimetric SAR Data

This paper explores four distinct target descriptors derived from full-polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data. Initially, we define a 2 × 1 real positive target vector by leveraging the mean and standard deviation of complex eigenvalues extracted from the 2 × 2 Sinclair matrix. This vector is the basis for two innovative parameters: 1) the scattering-type parameter, and 2) the scattering asymmetry parameter. Furthermore, we introduce the scattering purity and complexity parameters derived from the mean and standard deviation of the real positive eigenvalues of a Hermitian positive semi-definite 3 × 3 coherency (covariance) matrix. We highlight the efficacy of these parameters by conducting an experimental analysis with several canonical targets. Subsequently, we investigate their performance by thoroughly examining Radarsat-2 full-polarimetric SAR data.