Terrain and Surface Modeling Using Polarimetric SAR Data Features

Topography and surface slope variations affect perceived scattering polarization state of imaged targets in polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) applications. Accurate modeling of such effects can be used for both polarimetric data correction (e.g., better target classification) and topographic feature extraction. A framework is established in this paper to model target topography based on analytic relation between surface slopes and PolSAR data and imagery products (polarization orientation angle rotation, in particular). The developed formalism provides both forward, i.e., polarization rotation from topography, and inverse, i.e., terrain slopes from PolSAR data, solutions. The synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging scenario or mode is assumed to be general with arbitrary parameters (e.g., squint angle) and includes multi-SAR sensors for target terrain modeling.