Under foliage object imaging using SAR tomography and polarimetric spectral estimators

Abstract:
This paper addresses the imaging of objects located under a forest cover using Polarimetric SAR Tomography (POLTOM-SAR) at L band. High-Resolution (HR) spectral estimators, able to accurately separate multiple scattering centers in the vertical direction, are used to separate the response of objects and vehicles embedded in a volumetric background. Polarimetric spectral analysis techniques are introduced, and are shown to both improve the estimation accuracy of the vertical position of artificial scatterers and natural environments and provide optimal polarimetric features that may be used to further characterize the media under analysis. The effectiveness of the proposed approaches is demonstrated using tomograms derived from fully polarimetric L-band airborne data acquired by DLR’s E-SAR system over the test site of Dornstetten, Germany.