Target Characterization and Scattering Power Decomposition for Full and Compact Polarimetric SAR Data

In radar polarimetry, incoherent target decomposition techniques help extract scattering information from polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data. This is achieved either by fitting appropriate scattering models or by optimizing the received wave intensity through the diagonalization of the coherency (or covariance) matrix. As such, the received wave information depends on the received antenna configuration. Additionally, a polarimetric descriptor that is independent of the received antenna configuration might provide additional information which is missed by the individual elements of the coherency matrix. This implies that existing target characterization techniques might neglect this information. In this regard, we suitably utilize the 2-D and 3-D Barakat degree of polarization which is independent of the received antenna configuration to obtain distinct polarimetric information for target characterization. In this study, we introduce new roll-invariant scattering-type parameters for both full-polarimetric (FP) and compact-polarimetric (CP) SAR data. These new parameters jointly use the information of the 2-D and 3-D Barakat degree of polarization and the elements of the coherency (or covariance) matrix. We use these new scattering-type parameters, which provide equivalent information as the Cloude α for FP SAR data and the ellipticity parameter χ for CP SAR data, to characterize various targets adequately. Additionally, we appropriately utilize these new scattering-type parameters to obtain unique non-model-based three-component scattering power decomposition techniques. We obtain the even-bounce, and the odd-bounce scattering powers by modulating the total polarized power by a proper geometrical factor derived using the new scattering-type parameters for FP and CP SAR data. The diffused scattering power is obtained as the depolarized fraction of the total power. Moreover, due to the nature of its formulation, the decomposition scattering powers are non-negative and roll-invariant while the total power is conserved. The proposed method is both qualitatively and quantitatively assessed utilizing the L-band ALOS-2 and C-band Radarsat-2 FP and the associated simulated CP SAR data.