A coherent model of forest scattering and SAR imaging in the VHF and UHF-band

We present a coherent scattering model to determine the forest response to an illuminating plane wave in the frequency band 20-300 MHz. In this frequency band, at low frequencies, it is well-known that the waves penetrate the canopy and allow the detection of a hidden target. We have developed a model based on a domain integral representation of the electric field. A decoupling hypothesis is stated and validated, allowing to significantly reduce the numerical complexity of the problem inherent to integral representations. The simulated scattered field is used in a standard synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging algorithm to build horizontal and vertical SAR images of a set of trunks and a concealed target.