On the polarization entropy

Abstract

Abstract —The polarization entropy is an important parameter and it has been used for target classification, target detection and so on. For calculating the polarization entropy, we have to obtain the eigenvalues of a covariance matrix and then use logarithm. Therefore, some calculation cost is necessary to get all the entropy values of adjacent n by n windows for all pixels in a polarimetric SAR image. In this paper, the authors propose a new method to calculate the polarization entropy, based on the least square method. Using a polarimetric SAR image, we validate the effectiveness of the proposed method. Keywords-polarization; Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR); remote sensing I. I NTRODUCTION In polarimetric radar remote sensing, the polarization entropy is one of important parameters for target classification, target detection and so on [1-6]. For calculating the polarization entropy, however, one has to obtain the eigenvalues of a covariance matrix and then use logarithm. Consequently, some computation cost is necessary when we need get all the entropy values of adjacent n by n windows of every pixel in a polarimetric SAR image. In general, there may be more than one million pixels in a SAR image. So it is important to propose a simple method to calculate the polarization entropy. This paper will solve this problem. II. T