Model-based statistical analysis of PolSAR data

In this paper, we consider statistical analysis of PolSAR data in the framework of the multivariate product model. The complex scattering vector is here considered as a double stochastic circular Gaussian variable, in which the variance is linearly scaled by a common stochastic scaling factor z. The scaling factor is associated with texture. We discuss various parametric probability density functions for z, and indicate how model parameters can be estimated from data by a simple moment based method. Experimental analysis shows that for some surface covers, certain texture distributions fit better than others. Then, polarimetric covariance matrix data analysis is addressed in the framework of product models, and we propose a processing scheme which perform image segmentation using a stochastic EM approach.