Identification of Coherent Scatterers in SAR Images Based on the Analysis of Polarimetric Signatures

In this letter, a new method of identification of coherent scatterers (CSs) in the quadpolarimetric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data is introduced. The proposed method is based on the analysis of polarimetric signatures. The polarimetric signatures computed from real SAR data were compared with the polarimetric signatures of four canonical objects: trihedral, dihedral, left helix, and right helix. These canonical objects represent basic scattering mechanisms of single bounce, double bounce, and helix scattering. The obtained map of CSs was analyzed and compared with optical images of the studied region and with the map of polarized point scatterers obtained using the method proposed by S. R. Cloude. The developed method of the identification of CSs based on the polarimetric signature analysis gave promising results. It enables not only an accurate identification of the CSs but also a determination of the type of scattering mechanism that is characteristic for each of them.