Road extraction in urban and rural environments exploiting a dual-band SAR system

In this paper we present different fusion methodologies able to exploit road extraction from an airborne dual-band SAR acquisition. All the different approaches discussed in this paper profit from the complementary backscattering characteristics of X-band and P-band radars. As a result of our research, it is shown, by comparing road network extraction using different processing chains, that fusion at the information level is the best way to combine the extraction from multi-frequency SAR data. The level of information fusion does however play a role. Specifically, the fusion of road candidates before network regularization provides the most accurate road network extraction in both the considered test areas. Additionally, the research presented in this paper highlights the differences between urban and rural environments, stressing the greater importance of dual-based acquisition outside human settlements.