Modified Three-Component Decomposition Method for Polarimetric SAR Data

In this letter, a modified three-component model-based decomposition method is proposed to solve the problem of instability present in the Freeman decomposition method. We incorporate the similarity parameter and introduce a new constraint that describes the relationship between the powers of scattering components. The proposed method minimizes a continuous objective function under a set of constraints, which results in the stability of the decomposition method. Furthermore, a fast algorithm for solving the optimization problem is developed to accelerate computation. We demonstrate the stability of the proposed decomposition method by using the E-SAR polarimetric data acquired over the Oberpfaffenhofen area.