• DocumentCode
    985284
  • Title

    The unpolarized component in polarimetric radar observations of forested areas

  • Author

    Durden, Stephen L. ; Van Zyl, Jakob J. ; Zebker, Howard A.

  • Author_Institution
    Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Technol., Pasadena, CA, USA
  • Volume
    28
  • Issue
    2
  • fYear
    1990
  • fDate
    3/1/1990 12:00:00 AM
  • Firstpage
    268
  • Lastpage
    271
  • Abstract
    A polarimetric radar measures the complete scattering matrix of a target. For a forest and other natural targets, the average return is, in general, partially polarized. Conditions on the second-order statistics of the scattering matrix under which the return is fully polarized are derived, and it is shown that these conditions are connected with the eigenvalues of the covariance matrix. The result of this analysis is a set of three quantities which indicate the ability of a scatterer to generate an unpolarized component. These quantities for forested areas are shown
  • Keywords
    radar cross-sections; radar measurement; remote sensing; complete scattering matrix; forested areas; polarimetric radar observations; second-order statistics; unpolarized component; Backscatter; Covariance matrix; Electromagnetic scattering; Polarization; Radar imaging; Radar measurements; Radar polarimetry; Radar scattering; Space technology; Statistics;
  • fLanguage
    English
  • Journal_Title
    Geoscience and Remote Sensing, IEEE Transactions on
  • Publisher
    ieee
  • ISSN
    0196-2892
  • Type

    jour

  • DOI
    10.1109/36.46706
  • Filename
    46706