Analysis and optimization of multi-circular SAR for fully polarimetric holographic tomography over forested areas

This paper presents an analytical analysis of the impulse response function (IRF) of multi-circular SAR (MCSAR) as a function of the system bandwidth and the number of tracks, thereby optimizing the acquisition geometry to get the best 3-D resolution and sidelobe suppression. Moreover, the wide range of spectrum measurements provided by MCSAR allows the information retrieval over 360 °, thus understanding the anisotropic signature of scatterers, e.g. by their polarimetric signature. The second part of this paper presents a polarimetric analysis of the resulting holographic SAR tomograms of forested areas by means of the generalized likelihood ratio test (GLRT) algorithm, as well as by coherent and incoherent imaging. The IRF and the anisotropic analysis are validated with a polarimetric MCSAR campaign conducted at L-band by the DLR´s F-SAR sensor over a forested region in Kauf-beuren, Germany.