Ground topography retrieval on forested areas based on polarimetric SAR interferometry

Abstract

The work shown in this paper analyzes the topographic phase retrieval process on forested areas by means of Polarimetric Interferometric SAR (PolInSAR) data. On the basis of the Random Volume over Ground scattering model, an alternative implementation for the retrieval of the topographic phase, avoiding the bias introduced by the volumetric scattering components is presented. An evaluation based on simulated data is presented, where preliminary results show the capacity to retrieve the topographic phase, unambiguously and without the effect of the volume contribution. Results based also in experimental PolInSAR data acquired with the ESAR DLR’s system are presented.