Statistical Information Theory in SAR and PolSAR Image Analysis

Summary

This chapter provides a comprehensive presentation of models and information‐theoretic results combined with statistical inference for processing and understanding synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and polarimetric SAR (PolSAR) images. Starting from basic concepts and assumptions such as radar polarimetry, the dynamics of speckle pattern formation, and the main probability models, the chapter aims to show the user how these mathematical elements can be combined to solve classical problems of postprocessing SAR and PolSAR images. In particular, this framework includes the main distributions for SAR and PolSAR, such as the complex Wishart distribution and other probabilistic extensions of it, as well as their information‐theoretic measures, such as entropies and divergences.