Model Based SAR Tomography of Forested Areas

In this paper a technique is described for the tomographic characterization of forested areas through multiple SAR observations. This technique is based on a model of the second order statistics of the multi baseline, multi polarimetric, data which accounts for the presence of multiple distributed targets within the system resolution cell. The results of an experiment performed on a real P-band, multi-baseline, fully polarimetric data set relative to the forested site of Remningstorp, Sweden, are reported. Such results show the feasibility of performing a model based tomographic analysis of forests, resulting in a characterization of both the ground and the canopy in terms of elevation, spatial structure, and scattered power.