Optimal Parameter Estimation in Heterogeneous Clutter for High Resolution Polarimetric SAR Data

Gabriel Vasile (1) , Frédéric Pascal (2) , Jean-Philippe Ovarlez (3) , Pierre Formont (2) , Michel Gay (4, 1)

1 GIPSA-SIGMAPHY - GIPSA - Signal Images Physique
2 SONDRA - Sondra, CentraleSupélec, Université Paris-Saclay (COmUE)
3 ONERA - The French Aerospace Lab [Toulouse]
4 GIPSA-Services - GIPSA-Services

This letter presents a new estimation scheme for optimally deriving clutter parameters with high-resolution polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (POLSAR) data. The heterogeneous clutter in POLSAR data is described by the spherically invariant random vector model. Three parameters are introduced for the high-resolution POLSAR data clutter: the span, the normalized texture, and the speckle normalized covariance matrix. The asymptotic distribution of the novel span estimator is investigated. A novel heterogeneity test for the POLSAR clutter is also discussed. The proposed method is tested with airborne POLSAR images provided by the Office National d'Études et de Recherches Aerospatiales Radar Aéroporté Multi-spectral d'Etude des Signatures system.

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

Gabriel Vasile, Frédéric Pascal, Jean-Philippe Ovarlez, Pierre Formont, Michel Gay. Optimal Parameter Estimation in Heterogeneous Clutter for High Resolution Polarimetric SAR Data. IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters, 2011, 8 (6), pp.1046-1050. ⟨10.1109/LGRS.2011.2152363⟩. ⟨hal-00638825⟩