Modified version of three-component model-based decomposition for polarimetric SAR data

Abstract

A new hybrid Freeman/eigenvalue decomposition based on the orientation angle compensation and the various extended volume models for polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) data are presented. There are three steps in the novel version of the three-component model-based decomposition. Firstly, two special unitary transform matrices are applied on the coherency matrix for deorientation to decrease the correlation between the co-polarized term and the cross-polarized term. Secondly, two new conditions are proposed to distinguish the manmade structures and the nature media after the orientation angle compensation. Finally, in order to adapt to the scattering properties of different media, five different volume scattering models are used to decompose the coherency matrix. These new conditions pre-resolves man-made structures, which is beneficial to the subsequent selection of a more suitable volume scattering model. Fully PolSAR data on San Francisco are used in the experiments to prove the efficiency of the proposed hybrid Freeman/eigenvalue decomposition.