Coherence Loci for a Homogeneous Volume Over a Double-Bounce Ground Return

• Published in: IEEE geoscience and remote sensing letters Vol. 4; no. 2; pp. 317 - 321
• Main Authors: Ballester-Berman, J.D., Lopez-Sanchez, J.M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Piscataway IEEE 01.04.2007; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Channels; Coherence; Electromagnetic modeling; Grounds; Interferometers; Interferometry; Inversions; Layout; Loci; Mathematical models; Parameter retrieval; Polarimetric synthetic aperture radar; polarimetric synthetic aperture radar interferometry (PolInSAR); Polarization; Remote sensing; Scattering; single-transmit (single-tx) mode interferometry; Surface topography; Surface treatment; Vegetation
• ISSN: 1545-598X; 1558-0571
• DOI: 10.1109/LGRS.2007.894161

The formulation of the polarimetric interferometric coherences derived by simple homogeneous-volume-over-ground models is revisited for the case of ground returns dominated by the double-bounce terms. The differences between single-transmit (single-tx) and alternate-transmit modes of the interferometer are analyzed by inspecting the positions of the coherences on the complex plane. An additional volume-decorrelation term appears when the interferometer is operated in a single-tx mode, which adds complexity in the potential inversion of the model parameters. This effect is even more noticeable for the cross-polar channels in the oriented case, since the phase of the coherence with an infinite ground-to-volume ratio does not correspond to the topographic phase, as observed for the copolar channels