Polarimetric SAR Techniques and Applications.

This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "Polarimetric SAR Techniques and Applications" that was published in Applied Sciences

The recent launches of three fully polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) satellites have shown that polarimetric radar imaging can provide abundant data on the Earth’s environment, such as biomass and forest height estimation, snow cover mapping, glacier monitoring, and damage assessment. Written by two of the most recognized leaders in this field, Polarimetric Radar Imaging: From Basics to Applications presents polarimetric radar imaging and processing techniques and shows how to develop remote sensing applications using PolSAR imaging radar. The book provides a substantial and balanced introduction to the basic theory and advanced concepts of polarimetric scattering mechanisms, speckle statistics and speckle filtering, polarimetric information analysis and extraction techniques, and applications typical to radar polarimetric remote sensing. It explains the importance of wave polarization theory and the speckle phenomenon in the information retrieval problem of microwave imaging and inverse scattering. The authors demonstrate how to devise intelligent information extraction algorithms for remote sensing applications. They also describe more advanced polarimetric analysis techniques for polarimetric target decompositions, polarization orientation effects, polarimetric scattering modeling, speckle filtering, terrain and forest classification, manmade target analysis, and PolSAR interferometry. With sample PolSAR data sets and software available for download, this self-contained, hands-on book encourages you to analyze space-borne and airborne PolSAR and polarimetric interferometric SAR (Pol-InSAR) data and then develop applications using this data.

Radar polarimetry has been highly sought after for its use in the precise monitoring of Earth's surface. Polarimetric SAR Imaging explains the basic concepts of polarimetry and its diverse applications including: deforestation, tree classification, landslide detection, tsunamis, volcano eruptions and ash distribution, snow accumulation, rice field monitoring, urban area exploration, ship detection, among other applications. The explanations use actual data sets taken by Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS and ALOS2). With the increasing problems presented by climate change, there is a growing need for detailed earth observation using polarimetric data. As the treatment of vector nature of radar waves is complex, there is a gap between the theory and the application. Polarimetric SAR Imaging: Theory and Applications addresses and fills this gap. Features: Provides cutting-edge polarimetric applications for earth observation with full color images. Includes detailed descriptions of theory, equations, expansions, and flowcharts, and numerous real examples. Explains concepts, data analysis, and applications in simple and clear language aimed at an intuitive comprehension. Provides specific and unique examples of PolSAR images derived from actual space and airborne systems (ALOS/ALOS2, PiSAR-x/L) Covers the wide range of the radar polarimetry, especially the decomposition of the polarimetry data, an original method developed by the author using the Japanese polarimetric SAR data Illustrated in full color using images generated by polarimetric techniques, this book is easy to understand and use for both student and expert, and is an excellent resource both in the classroom and in the field.

This open access book focuses on the practical application of electromagnetic polarimetry principles in Earth remote sensing with an educational purpose. In the last decade, the operations from fully polarimetric synthetic aperture radar such as the Japanese ALOS/PalSAR, the Canadian Radarsat-2 and the German TerraSAR-X and their easy data access for scientific use have developed further the research and data applications at L,C and X band. As a consequence, the wider distribution of polarimetric data sets across the remote sensing community boosted activity and development in polarimetric SAR applications, also in view of future missions. Numerous experiments with real data from spaceborne platforms are shown, with the aim of giving an up-to-date and complete treatment of the unique benefits of fully polarimetric synthetic aperture radar data in five different domains: forest, agriculture, cryosphere, urban and oceans.

Because of its ability to sense the Earth's surface at night and during the day, under any weather condition, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) has become a well-established and powerful remote sensing technology that is used worldwide for numerous applications. This book compiles 19 research works that investigate different aspects of SAR processing, SAR image analysis, and SAR applications. The contributions cover topics related to multi-angle/wide-angle SAR imaging; Doppler parameter estimation; data-driven focusing; Inverse SAR (ISAR) applied to pulsar signal modeling and detection; ground-based SAR; near-field interferometric ISAR; the interaction between SAR signals and the Infosphere; SAR interferometry for ground displacement monitoring, feature extraction, and change detection; and SAR-based sea applications. The selected studies represent real examples of the abundant research ongoing in the field of SAR processing and applications, and they further demonstrate that SAR imaging still presents considerable opportunities for future investigation.