Polarimetric tomography for structural characterization of tropical forest

This paper addresses the estimation of tropical forest parameters using polarimetric and tomographic SAR (PolTomSAR) data. A methodology based on an Multi-Baseline (MB) generalization of the Random-Volume-over-Ground (RVoG) model is introduced. This methodology consists in estimating forest height, its underlying ground topography and canopy vertical structure, after separation of the ground and volume contributions. The decomposition of a PolTom covariance matrix as a Sum of Kronecker Products (SKP) provides a robust separation of ground and volume components. A new model of the vertical structure of vegetation is introduced. This model allows better separation of canopy contributions from the other volume contributions due to low vegetation and to the ground. The proposed techniques are applied to P-Band data acquired during the TropiSAR campaign over the test site of Paracou in French Guiana.