A Dual-Baseline PolInSAR Method for Forest Height and Vertical Profile Function Inversion Based on the Polarization Coherence Tomography Technique

Forest height and vertical structure profile functions can be estimated using polarimetric interferometric synthetic aperture radar (PolInSAR) data based on the random volume over ground (RVoG) model and polarization coherence tomography (PCT) theory, respectively. For each resolution cell, considering different forest vertical scattering structure functions to solve the corresponding forest height, the accuracy of PolInSAR forest height inversion will be improved. In this study, a forest vertical structure profile function and forest height inversion algorithm based on PCT technology was developed by using dual-baseline PolInSAR data. Then the deviation of forest height was corrected according to the inverted forest vertical structure. Finally, the LiDAR and PolInSAR data were employed to verify the proposed method. The experimental results show that the accuracy of the proposed method (tropical forest: RMSE = 5.96 m, boreal forest: RMSE = 3.11 m) is 25.5% and 30.43% higher than that of the dual-baseline RVoG model algorithm (tropical forest: RMSE = 8 m, boreal forest: RMSE = 4.47 m).

Automated summary

Forest height and vertical structure can be estimated using PolInSAR data based on RVoG model and PCT theory. A forest height inversion algorithm based on PCT technology was developed using dual-baseline PolInSAR data. The accuracy of the proposed method was validated using LiDAR and PolInSAR data.