Delineating Stationary/Non-Stationary Ground Targets with Correlation Analysis of Two Cross-Pol Components in PolSAR Data

With a moving SAR platform, the HV (H transmitted and V received) and VH (V transmitted and H received) components in the polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) data are obtained at different positions along the azimuth direction. The HV and VH datasets' correlation coefficient varies whether a ground radar target is stationary or not. A building is standing, but a tree canopy may not be due to the surrounding air movement. Therefore, based on the correlation between the HV and VH components in one single PolSAR dataset, a stationary descriptor,
$S_{D}$
, was studied to separate the volume scattering from a stationary urban target with a large azimuth orientation angle or a non-stationary vegetation canopy. The separability was evaluated using two PALSAR PolSAR datasets. The correct separation rates were 86.2% for urban targets with large azimuthal orientation angles and 93.9% or higher for vegetation targets. Thus,
$S_{D}$
effectively differentiates urban targets with large azimuth orientation angles from vegetation targets.