Influence of Row Wheat on Radar Backscatter for Azimuthal Look Angles at L-, S-, C-, and X-Bands

• Published in: IEEE geoscience and remote sensing letters Vol. 13; no. 6; pp. 811 - 815
• Main Authors: He, Lei, Tong, Ling, Shi, Jiancheng, Chen, Yan, Li, Yuxia, Guo, Caizheng, Wu, Baolong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Piscataway IEEE 01.06.2016; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Azimuth look angle; Backscatter; Backscattering; Cereals; Mathematical models; Radar; Radar measurements; Radar scattering; radiative transfer (RT) theory; row wheat; Scattering; scattering measurement; Soil; Soil (material); Soil measurements; Wheat; X-band; Azimuth look angle; radiative transfer (RT) theory; backscatter; row wheat; scattering measurement
• ISSN: 1545-598X; 1558-0571
• DOI: 10.1109/LGRS.2016.2546550

This letter investigates the influence of row wheat for azimuthal look angles on radar backscatter at L-, S-, C-, and X-bands. The radar backscatter was collected with full polarization (HH, HV, VH, and VV) and incidence angles (10°-70°) at different wheat phenological stages. Simultaneously, wheat parameters (biomass, canopy height, stem density, leaf inclination, etc.) and soil parameters (moisture and roughness) were measured to explain the influence based on radiative transfer theory. The research results show that, when the contribution of soil scattering dominates in total backscatter, the influence of row wheat on radar backscatter is varied with the electromagnetic wavelength and the visible soil contained in radar footprint area. When volume scattering contributes more in total backscatter, the influence of row wheat on radar backscatter mainly comes from leaf parameters and wheat geometric shape. Moreover, research results also show that azimuthal look angles affect radar backscatter much mainly for variable scattering cross section and leaf parameters. The research is helpful for cereal monitoring, modeling, and cereal parameter inversion from synthetic aperture radar images.