Phenomenology of fully polarimetric SIR-C data

Abstract

We have completed the analysis of single look fully polarimetric data from SIR-C. The analysis of multilook fully polarimetric data was reported at the SPIE Radar Sensor Technology XIII conference in April 13-15, 2009. The title of the paper is Stokes Matrix Eigenvectors of Fully Polarimetric SAR Data. In addition to the property that only one of the eigenvectors of the Stokes matrix satifies the condition for a Stokes Vector, the eigenvector solutions for the single look data are fully polarized (no depolarized part). An interesting relationship between the eigenvalue and span for a pixel will be shown. Results from the investigation of the copolarized phase difference distributions for the ocean surface, lake surface, lake ice, bare ground, crop fields and vegetation are reported. Similar analysis of high resolution data from such sensors as RADARSAT 2 and TerraSAR-X and aircraft data will allow for detailed modeling studies of fully polarimetric signatures. We present a derivation of the Stokes matrix elements and describe the delivery format of the SIR-C data.