Crop characterization using an improved scattering power decomposition technique for compact polarimetric SAR data

Crop characterization using Compact-Pol Synthetic Aperture Radar (CP-SAR) data is of prime interest with the rapid advancements of SAR systems towards operational applications. It is noteworthy that as a good compromise between the dual and quad-polarized SAR systems, the CP-SAR offer advantages in terms of the larger swath and lower data rate. The m − χ CP decomposition considers two out of the three Stokes child parameters: degree of polarization (m), ellipticity (χ), and orientation angle (ψ) to describe the polarized part of the quasi-monochromatic partially polarized wave. An improvement in the scattering powers was proposed in the S − Ω decomposition, which takes into accounts both the transmitted and received wave ellipticities (χ_t, χ_r) and the orientation angles (ψ_t, ψ_r). In this decomposition, S denotes the Stokes vector and Ω is the polarized power fraction. However, it may be noted that the S − Ω decomposition intrinsically ignores dominance in the target scattering mechanism while calculating the powers. In this work, improvement is proposed for the S − Ω decomposition by utilizing the degree of dominance in the scattering mechanism. The improved S − Ω (named as iS − Ω) decomposition powers are first compared with the existing m − χ and S − Ω powers for elementary (viz., trihedral and dihedral corner reflectors) and distributed targets using simulated CP-SAR data from quad-pol RADARSAT-2 data. An increase of ∼2% for odd and even-bounce powers obtained from the iS − Ω decomposition is observed for the trihedral and dihedral corner reflectors respectively. The analysis of the scattering powers for distributed targets shows that an increase of 15% and 12% in the even and odd-bounce powers is observed from iS − Ω for urban and bare soil areas respectively as compared to the m − χ and S − Ω decompositions. Besides, temporal variations in the scattering powers obtained from the iS − Ω decomposition are also analyzed for rice, cotton, and sugarcane crops at different growth stages.     

A study on the polarimetric properties of various features using SIR-C data

Spaceborne Imaging Radar (SIR-C) data acquired over Gujarat, India in 1994 were processed and analysed using differnet techniques applicable to polarimetric SAR data such as polarization signatures, polarization index, decomposition of the signal and polarization phase difference and limited groundtruth data. It has been observed that multi-frequency polarimetric data enhances the potential of retrieving geo-physical parameters. The polarization signatures are found to vary with the nature of the target. Target decomposition of the returned signal will be useful for the classification of various features. Polarization Phase Difference (PPD) gives good information about the vegetation parameters.     

极化SAR自适应三分量分解方法

介绍了原始极化SAR三分量分解中存在的问题,如负功率和散射机制模糊,并深入分析了其改进方法中仍然存在的缺陷,提出了一种自适应的三分量分解。该分解采用了更一般化的散射模型,并首次考虑了像素中存在不同旋转角的两个面或偶次散射目标,然后利用散射Alpha角确定除体散射之外的剩余主导散射机制,使面或偶次散射得到了更充分的保持。最后,从散射模型与极化相干矩阵自适应匹配的角度出发,提出了一种对负功率进行自适应优化的措施,使得负功率像素个数大大减少,从而分解更加准确有效。试验结果表明,该分解所得结果更符合实际地物散射过程,能更好地解决基于模型的分解方法中存在的缺陷。     

自交叉双边滤波的极化SAR数据相干斑抑制

相干斑抑制是极化SAR数据预处理的关键步骤。双边滤波是一种空域和值域滤波相结合的优秀边缘保持滤波算法。针对双边滤波在抑制极化SAR数据相干斑的不足,该文将改进的交叉双边滤波引入到极化SAR数据降噪领域,加入散射机制测度来扩展原权重核,根据SPAN图像的局域变差系数自动调整空间方差系数,利用参考图像来度量灰度值和散射机制相似性。实验结果表明:本文方法较经典滤波算法有更强的噪声平滑能力和更好的细节信息保持能力,在保持原数据极化散射信息方面也表现出良好的性能,这为基于极化SAR数据的后续应用提供了支持。     

采用螺旋散射的SAR极化定标参考地物提取方法

极化合成孔径雷达观测系统获取的影像需要经过极化定标处理才能进行定量的分析与应用。当前的极化定标方案普遍采用分布式地物解算串扰和交叉极化通道不平衡误差,需要在定标前选取满足一定散射特征的分布式地物作为定标参考样本。利用螺旋散射的极化特征与分布特点,提出了一种新的极化定标参考地物自动提取方法。该方法根据极化目标分解构建螺旋散射比率特征,并采用自适应阈值分割方法自动提取地物样本。采用C波段机载极化雷达影像进行实验,结果表明,所提方法能够保持影像极化定标的准确性,并能提高极化定标的精度。     

Scattering property based contextual PolSAR speckle filter

Reliability of the scattering model based polarimetric SAR (PolSAR) speckle filter depends upon the accurate decomposition and classification of the scattering mechanisms. This paper presents an improved scattering property based contextual speckle filter based upon an iterative classification of the scattering mechanisms. It applies a Cloude-Pottier eigenvalue-eigenvector decomposition and a fuzzy H/α classification to determine the scattering mechanisms on a pre-estimate of the coherency matrix. The H/α classification identifies pixels with homogeneous scattering properties. A coarse pixel selection rule groups pixels that are either single bounce, double bounce or volume scatterers. A fine pixel selection rule is applied to pixels within each canonical scattering mechanism. We filter the PolSAR data and depending on the type of image scene (urban or rural) use either the coarse or fine pixel selection rule. Iterative refinement of the Wishart H/α classification reduces the speckle in the PolSAR data. Effectiveness of this new filter is demonstrated by using both simulated and real PolSAR data. It is compared with the refined Lee filter, the scattering model based filter and the non-local means filter. The study concludes that the proposed filter compares favorably with other polarimetric speckle filters in preserving polarimetric information, point scatterers and subtle features in PolSAR data.     

相向飞行全极化SAR图像对建筑物的立体重构

用多方向飞行的全极化SAR图像可能提取特定三维目标的高度与位置信息,进而实现目标物的几何立体重构。全极化SAR图像数据与单极化SAR相比,可以选择多种极化组合数据,提供对于特定目标几何特征敏感的数据类型,通过多方向飞行SAR图像反演该目标或目标群的高度与位置信息。本文用两幅相向飞行的PI-SAR(日本机载极化与干涉SAR,X波段、1.5m分辨率)图像,提取日本仙台电视塔高度、日本东北大学建筑物群的立体重构。     

采用散射特征相似性的极化SAR图像相干斑抑制

极化合成孔径雷达(SAR)图像的相干斑严重影响图像信息的有效提取,为此提出一种基于极化散射特性的相干斑抑制方法。该方法结合SAR图像的冗余信息及其散射特性的相似性,利用Wishart分布对SAR数据的相似性进行度量,然后依据相似性计算权重对协方差矩阵进行加权平均,实现对极化SAR图像的相干斑抑制。本文方法对协方差矩阵的各元素单独处理,因此在极化信息的保留方面尤具优势。通过真实SAR数据的实验表明,该方法与现有极化白化滤波(PWF)和极化Lee滤波相比,具有更好的相干斑抑制能力和细节的保持能力。     

Quad and compact multitemporal C-band PolSAR observations for crop characterization and monitoring

Monitoring crop condition using optical satellite indices has a legacy of several decades. Early warning of variances in crop production is vital in mitigating regional and global food insecurity. Adoption of optical vegetation indices for this purpose is widespread, yet cloud cover impedes the acquisition of these data. Although early research using scatterometers and aircraft hinted at the sensitivity of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) responses to crop development, the implementation of satellite SAR observations in operational crop condition monitoring is limited. In the research presented here, volume-to-surface (V/S) scattering ratios derived from C-band RADARSAT-2 quad and simulated compact polarimetric (QP and CP) imagery are assessed for their potential to monitor crop growth. Both V/S ratios were strongly correlated with optical vegetation indices, including the widely adopted Normalized Difference and Soil Adjusted Vegetation Indices. The changes in the ratio of volume to surface scattering were correlated with variations in crop biomass. The results support the potential of a SAR scattering ratio for crop condition monitoring. In particular, encouraging results were reported for compact polarimetry, a mode that can be implemented to deliver broader swath coverage conducive to regional and national monitoring.     

Development of a snow wetness inversion algorithm using polarimetric scattering power decomposition model

In this paper, a new snow wetness estimation model is proposed for full-polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data. Surface and volume are the dominant scattering components in wet-snow conditions. The generalized four component polarimetric decomposition with unitary transformation (G4U) based generalized surface and volume parameters are utilized to invert snow surface and volume dielectric constants using the Bragg coefficients and Fresnel transmission coefficients respectively. The snow surface and volume wetness are then estimated using an empirical relationship. The effective snow wetness is derived from the weighted averaged surface and volume snow wetness. The weights are derived from the normalized surface and volume scattering powers obtained from the generalized full-polarimetric SAR decomposition method. Six Radarsat-2 fine resolution full-polarimetric datasets acquired over Himachal Pradesh, India along with the near-real time in situ measurements were used to validate the proposed model. The snow wetness derived from the SAR data by the proposed model with in situ measurements indicated that the absolute error at 95% confidence interval is 1.3% by volume.     

基于Freeman散射熵和各向异性度的极化SAR影像分类算法研究

极化SAR影像中阴影、水体和裸露的耕地3种地物类型有非常相似的极化散射特性,常规基于非相干分解的分类方法难以将其有效地区分。对此,本文引入基于Freeman分解的散射熵Hf和各向异性度Af两个特征参数,并将其用于极化SAR影像分类。首先利用Hf和Af参数将阴影和水体提取出来,然后将其他地物按散射机制分为3大类,并对每一类再次利用Hf和Af参数进行细分,最后通过基于Wishart分布的聚类和迭代分类,得到最终的分类结果。通过利用Radarsat-2在河南登封获取的全极化SAR数据进行试验,表明该算法执行效率高,能够有效地区分阴影、水体和裸露的耕地,并且对其他地物类型也有很好的分类效果。     

全卷积网络和条件随机场相结合的全极化SAR土地覆盖分类

针对经典全卷积网络(fully convolution network,FCN)分类精度低、效果差,以及传统的极化合成孔径雷达(PolSAR)土地覆盖分类方法未充分考虑地物散射特性的问题,提出了一种结合改进FCN和条件随机场(conditional random field,CRF)的全极化SAR土地覆盖分类算法。首先,利用Freeman分解和Pauli分解建模全极化SAR影像,同时提取各分解对应的散射特征,参考Freeman分解散射功率获取其主散射分量对应的主散射地物;同时,借鉴在图像分类领域中具有卓越表现的FCN-Vgg19-8s网络,考虑其高层卷积参数量大和低层卷积模型参数优化程度不足,通过在高层和中层分别构建多尺度卷积组和代价函数设计了FCN-MD-8s网络,保证对整体模型参数进行降维和优化;以Freeman分解散射机理特征为基准,采用级连式迁移学习结构,实现FCN-MD-8s网络的模型训练和测试;然后,根据主散射分量所对应的主散射地物,在各分量预测图中提取出主特征地物,得到分量地物分类结果,并将其进行叠加得到全局粗分类;最后,利用全连接CRF结合Pauli相干分解重建假彩色图,对全局粗分类进行全局像素类别转移获得细分类结果。通过对分类结果定性和定量分析,可知提出算法具有有效性和可行性。     

Consistency Analysis of Subsurface Fracture Characterization Using Different Polarimetry Techniques by a Borehole Radar

We present a fully polarimetric borehole radar in conjunction with radar polarimetry, Pauli decomposition, and H-alpha decomposition techniques to carry out physical characterization of subsurface fractures. Further tests are needed to validate the applicability of radar polarimetry analysis for physical characterization of subsurface targets. Toward this goal, we present the implementation of two other decomposition techniques, namely: (1) the Durden-Freeman decomposition and (2) polarimetric anisotropy parameter methods, in the context of previous research and examine the consistency of results using various polarimetric decomposition techniques. While results from the radar polarimetry decomposition were found to depend greatly upon the kind of physical or mathematical models, these techniques seem to provide comparable performances in terms of fracture characterization and classification.     

不依赖人工定标器的全极化SAR定标研究进展

极化定标是极化合成孔径雷达应用的前提。传统极化定标方法以地面布设的人工定标器为参考,通过极化畸变模型对系统误差进行求解与标定。然而,人工定标器价格昂贵、数量稀少,每次定标任务都需根据传感器过境方向、雷达视角等信息进行设备调整;此外,现代雷达系统工作波位多、入射角调节范围大,不同视角获取影像的定标参数也不相同,这对地面定标设备的布设精度、调整的时效性提出了更高要求。为了及时、快速地完成极化定标,如何以自然界中的某些特殊地物作为人工定标器的替代品来完成定标具有重大的科学价值。本文综述了近年来国内、外提出的不依赖人工定标器的SAR极化定标研究进展（即自主定标）。首先阐述了极化定标的基本流程与极化质量评价体系;然后对近年来高精度自主定标相关研究进行了梳理,根据技术特点将其分为基于自然地物约束的自主极化定标、基于似角反射器的自主极化定标两类,对不同算法适用性进行了分析;最后对未来的研究方向进行了展望。     

简缩极化特征值分析的溢油检测

为有效利用简缩极化SAR进行海洋溢油检测,本文基于简缩极化特征值分析,提出了3个用于简缩极化溢油检测的参数,引入了基于简缩极化特征值分解的简缩极化熵Hc(Compact Polarization Entropy)、简缩极化比参数PFc(Compact Polarization Fraction)、简缩极化基准高度PHc(Compact Polarization Pedestal Height)特征进行海洋溢油检测。海表的散射类型主要为低熵散射(小粗糙面发生的Bragg散射),为弱去极化、弱散射过程随机性状态,由于溢油会阻尼海水的Bragg散射,使其熵值变高、呈去极化、强散射过程随机性状态,故简缩极化熵、简缩极化比参数和简缩极化基准高度可以用来检测海洋溢油。本文采用C波段的Radarsat-2、SIR-C/X-SAR数据进行了实验,结果表明:简缩极化熵、简缩极化比参数和简缩极化基准高度能够有效抑制疑似溢油,使海水与疑似溢油差异变小;突出溢油区域,使海水与溢油的可区分性变大。     

极化SAR图像中非平稳目标的检测与区分方法研究

在合成孔径雷达(SAR)极化测量中,通常认为雷达视角相对于目标是不变的。然而实际上SAR通常具有较宽的方位向波束,在孔径合成过程中,所成的全分辨率SAR图像包含多个斜视角下的目标回波。极化参数的子孔径分析可以用来对成像过程表现出非平稳散射行为的媒质进行检测。本文提出了一套基于子孔径分解和对散射矩阵及参数进行统计分析的方法,来检测两类非平稳目标。仿真结果表明,这种方法具有较好的非平稳目标检测和区分性能。     

极化SAR参数优化与光学波谱相结合的面向对象土地覆盖分类

提出一种基于极化参数优化的面向对象分类方法。该方法结合光学和SAR数据,有效提高了对地物的识别能力。本文方法的关键在于:在■分解中,使用光学影像指导SAR影像选择同质点,使其更精确地估计极化参数并结合光学波谱信息作为输入特征;使用面向对象的分类方法,仅将光学影像作为分割输入,避免SAR噪声引起的分割错误。以美国Bakersfield地区的Sentinel-1/2数据为例,确定7种地物类型,对比分析不同输入与不同分类器对分类结果的影响。研究表明,优化输入参数在纹理丰富区域能够有效提高分类精度;面向对象的分类结果更加稳定并较好地维持地表几何特征;改进分类方法较传统分类方法总体精度提高了近10%,达到92.6%。     

全极化SAR数据在地表覆盖/利用监测中的应用

SIR-C/X-SAR是运行在地球轨道上的第一个多波段(L、C、X)全极化(HH、VV、VH和HV)成像雷达系统,该系统具有极化测量和干涉测量功能。全极化雷达测量每一个像元的全散射矩阵,所获取的信息非常丰富。但是,由于这些极化合成图像具有较高的相关性,导致了图像信息提取精度的降低。本文基于新疆和田地区的SIR-CL波段全极化雷达数据,利用全散射矩阵的特点合成了HH-VV极化相关图像、极化度图像、目标增强图像和相位差图像。这些图像相关性小,地表覆盖信息丰富,提高了全极化SAR数据在实验区信息提取的准确度。     

极化SAR干涉测量模拟研究

极化SAR干涉测量将极化测量技术和干涉测量技术巧妙地结合，能够提高干涉测量精度，尤其是在植被覆盖的情况下，不仅能够测量地表地形，而且使得估计植被高度成为可能。因此，近几年来国际上对极化SAR干涉测量技术的研究越来越重视，极化SAR干涉测量已成为SAR应用技术发展的重要方向。通过模拟技术深入研究极化SAR干涉测量理论和方法，并提出了一种新的极化SAR干涉测量改进算法，模拟实验结果表明，该算法可以进一步提高测量精度。     

Evaluation of RISAT-1 SAR Radiometric Calibration Using Extended Amazon Rainforest

The single-frequency Radar Imaging Satellite-1 (RISAT-1) Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) (launched in April, 2012) is designed to provide a wide variety of imaging options compared to the prevailing SAR missions. The scale of the calibration task for the RISAT-1 mission is increased with the inclusion of multiple beams and polarizations (single, dual and quad) along with circular/hybrid polarization capabilities, for the first time from space. Significant efforts have been made in the evolution of SAR processor for the provision of radiometrically and geometrically calibrated products to the users. After the commissioning phase, RISAT-1 was put into routine operations in Oct. 2012. Since then extensive beam coverage of Amazon rainforest in various modes was carried out to evaluate the calibration parameters and SAR processor performance. Subsequently, the processor version 1.2.0 was improved to version 1.3.0 and with further modifications to version 1.4.0. This article details the analysis carried out at each processor version, by quality evaluation team, to quantify the parameter behaviour and to give feedback on the processor performance to the SAR processor team. The various radiometric quality parameters evaluated and monitored are shape of the antenna pattern, gamma-naught, backscattering coefficient (sigma-naught), speckle index, radiometric resolution and Noise Equivalent Sigma Zero (NESZ). Data studied for the analysis is in Single Look Complex (SLC) for stripmap mode and multilook (Ground range) for ScanSAR and stripmap mode in dual and circular polarizations. The performance of version 1.4.0 for all the beams (near-to-far) is found to be consistent and meeting the mission specifications for the product.