Phase quality optimization in polarimetric differential SAR interferometry

Abstract

In this paper, a study of polarimetric optimization techniques in the frame of differential synthetic aperture radar (SAR) interferometry (DInSAR) is considered. Historically, DInSAR techniques have been limited to the single-polarimetric case, mainly due to the unavailability of fully polarimetric data. Lately, the launch of satellites with polarimetric capabilities, such as the Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS), RADARSAT-2, or TerraSAR-X, allowed merging polarimetric and interferometric techniques to improve the pixels' phase quality and, thus, the density and the reliability of the final DInSAR results. The relationship between the polarimetrically optimized coherence or amplitude dispersion maps and the final DInSAR results is carefully analyzed, using both orbital and ground-based SAR fully polarimetric data. DInSAR processing using polarimetric optimization techniques in the pixel selection process is compared with the classical single-polarimetric approach, achieving up to a threefold increase of the number of pixel candidates in the coherence case and up to a factor of seven in the amplitude dispersion case.