Surface Roughness and Microwave Surface Scattering of High-Resolution Imaging Radar

Sang-Eun Park (1, 2) , Laurent Ferro-Famil (1) , Sophie Allain (1) , Eric Pottier (1)

1 IETR - Institut d'Électronique et des Technologies du numéRique
2 Department of Geoinformation Engineering, Sejong University Seoul

This study aims to understand the effects of spatial resolution on the surface backscattering characteristics of polarimetric radar. Surface scattering models based on approximate methods are formulated by the roughness second-order statistics to obtain a closed-form expression for the radar scattering response. Most studies have been carried out based on the roughness parameters of the infinite surface. In this letter, we propose the roughness autocorrelation function of truncated surfaces for a more realistic description of the roughness parameters of high-resolution radar. The use of roughness parameters for a truncated surface in the scattering model is pertinent to explain the dependence of the backscattering coefficient on the spatial resolution. Simulation results indicate that the traditional computation of the surface backscattering based on the autocovariance function of an infinite surface leads to an underestimation of the backscattering signature of the high-resolution radar.

Mots clés: spatial resolution backscattering coefficient dependence; spatial resolution effect; surface backscattering characteristic; surface backscattering traditional computation; surface scattering model; truncated surface roughness autocorrelation function; Backscatter; Radar imaging; Rough surfaces; Scattering; Spatial resolution; Imaging radar; geophysical equipment; radar polarimetry; statistics; surface roughness; surface scattering; approximate method; closed-form expression; high-resolution imaging radar microwave surface scattering; high-resolution imaging radar surface roughness; high-resolution radar backscattering signature underestimation; infinite surface autocovariance function; infinite surface roughness parameter; polarimetric radar; radar scattering response; roughness second-order statistics

Domaines: Traitement du signal et de l'image [eess.SP]; Traitement du signal et de l'image [eess.SP]

Sang-Eun Park, Laurent Ferro-Famil, Sophie Allain, Eric Pottier. Surface Roughness and Microwave Surface Scattering of High-Resolution Imaging Radar. IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters, 2015, 12 (4), pp.756 - 760. ⟨10.1109/LGRS.2014.2361144⟩. ⟨hal-01131636⟩