Statistical models for polarimetric SAR data

Abstract

Agricultural areas in low resolution AirSAR polarimetric data exhibit K distributed statistics. The order parameter of the K distribution shows considerable variation with frequency and vegetation type. At C band, all vegetation types give large order parameters, so that they are essentially gaussian, but order parameters decrease with frequency, markedly so for cereal crops. Coniferous woodland is gaussian at all frequencies. Root crops show intermediate behaviour, being better fitted by K distributions whose order parameters are not as low as those of cereals. These results indicate that five parameters are sufficient to describe distributed agricultural targets at higher frequencies, but an extra parameter is available at lower frequencies.