Analysis of the double bounce scattering mechanism of buildings in VHR SAR data

Abstract

This paper presents a detailed experimental study on the behavior of the backscattering of buildings in very high resolution (VHR) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images under varying conditions. The double bounce effect caused by the corner reflector between the front wall of the buildign and its surrounding ground area is an important characterist of the building in VHR SAR. Therefore, we focus on the analysis of the relation between the double bounce effect and the aspect angle of the building. The study is carried out in three phases: i)development of a laboratory experimental setup on a scaled building model under well-controlled conditions with a variety of viewing configurations; ii) validation of the results obtained from the laboratyr measurements with real VHR airborne SAR data; iii) comparison of the above mentioned results with the simulations obtained by two theoretical models derived from electromagnetic theory. The laboratory experiments were carried out at the European Microwave Signature Lab (EMSL) at the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission (EC), whie the real airborne SAR images wer acquired by the RAMSES sensor and were processed in order to obtain simulations of COSMO-SkyMed satellite images. The analyses showed that the strength of the double bounce drops rapidly in the low aspect angle range, while it decreases moderately for larter angles.