Feature Detection in Polinsar Images by an Interactive Fuzzy Fusion Approach. Application to Glacier Monitoring

Interferometry in POLSAR performs two acquisitions (spatially separated by the baseline) of the scattering matrix for each resolution cell. The advantages of interferometry (height and/or displacement information) are enhanced by the polarimetric decomposition techniques. In this paper a two-step approach is proposed to obtain specific features from multivariate SAR data sets, either multi-temporal InSAR or POL-InSAR. The first step consists in extracting image attributes related to the useful information. The second step consists in merging the attributes using a interactive fuzzy fusion technique. The interactive fuzzy fusion is proposed to provide end-users with a simple and easily understandable tool for tuning the detection results. A first application of the method is performed on a data set of five co-registered ERS 1/2 tandems from the French Alps (the Mont-Blanc region), including two temperate glaciers: the Argentière and the Mer-de-glace. A second application is the analysis of the scattering mechanisms with L-Band E–SAR POL-InSAR data.