Ocean features separation from multi-band polarimetric SAR imagery

Abstract

Ocean features in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images are usually complicated and make SAR images hard to understand. Because of lower signal-to-noise rate (SNR) in SAR imagery, it is much more difficult to separate different ocean features than to separate different land features. This paper presents a completely novel method to separate ocean features from multi-band polarimetric SAR imagery based on polarimetric signatures of ocean features. AIRSAR data from Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) are used in the case studies and good results are achieved.