Analysis of the hybrid-polarity SAR architecture for oil spill observation

In this study, the capability of Compact-Polarimetry (CP) Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) architectures to perform sea oil pollution monitoring is analyzed. The Hybrid-Polarity (HP) CP mode, characterized by a right-handed circular transmission and a coherent horizontal/vertical orthogonal receiving basis, is considered. Several HP features are extracted from actual L- and C-band Fully-Polarimetric (FP) SAR data emulating the HP configuration. The behaviour of HP features is physically interpreted using a polarimetric model that allows describing the properties of the partially polarized wave scattered off the sea surface with and without oil slicks. Performance of HP SAR architectures to detect oil spills, characterize their physical/chemical properties and discriminate them from a broad class of look-alikes (i.e., biogenic surfactants) is evaluated and contrasted with the one achieved by FP SARs. Experimental results witness the capability of HP SAR architecture to be operationally used fo sea oil spill observation purposes, achieving performance that tends to the FP one.