Abstract
The Canadian RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM) has passed its early operation phase with the performance evaluation being currently active. This evaluation aims to confirm that the innovative design of the mission’s synthetic aperture radar (SAR) meets the expectations of intended users. In this study, we provide an overview of initial results obtained for three high-priority applications; flood mapping, sea ice analysis, and wetland classification. In our study, the focus is on results obtained using not only linear polarization, but also the adopted Compact Polarimetric (CP) architecture in RCM. Our study shows a promising level of agreement between RCM and RADARSAT-2 performance in flood mapping using dual-polarized HH-HV SAR data over Red River, Manitoba, suggesting smooth continuity between the two satellite missions for operational flood mapping. Visual analysis of coincident RCM CP and RADARSAT-2 dual-polarized HH-HV SAR imagery over the Resolute Passage, Canadian Central Arctic, highlighted an improved contrast between sea ice classes in dry ice winter conditions. A statistical analysis using selected sea ice samples confirmed the increased contrast between thin and both rough and deformed ice in CP SAR. This finding is expected to enhance Canadian Ice Service’s (CIS) operational visual analysis of sea ice in RCM SAR imagery for ice chart production. Object-oriented classification of a wetland area in Newfoundland and Labrador by fusion of RCM dual-polarized VV-VH data and Sentinel-2 optical imagery revealed promising classification results, with an overall accuracy of 91.1% and a kappa coefficient of 0.87. Marsh presented the highest user’s and producer’s accuracies (87.77% and 82.08%, respectively) compared to fog, fen, and swamp.
Highlights
This study evaluated simulated Compact Polarimetric (CP) data from the three RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM) imaging modes 5 m (5M), 16 m (16M), and SC30M, which are likely to be used for wetland mapping
Evaluation of the quality performance of RCM synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery has shown improved real noise floor values compared to the nominal (Table 1) for all modes
The implementation of the stepped receive functionality in the RCM ScanSAR modes has contributed to improved image quality performance by reducing the noise equivalent sigma zero (NESZ) and range ambiguity [11,15]
Summary
The RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM) is the evolution of the Canadian. RADARSAT program, which started back in 1995 with the launch of RADARSAT-1. The. RCM is comprised of three satellites launched on 12 June 2019 into closely coordinated orbits. The primary payload instrument on each satellite is a synthetic aperture radar (SAR)
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