Application of Polarimetric Sar to Earth Remote Sensing

Electromagnetic scattering is fundamentally a vector process. Therefore, to capture all the information from the scattered waves, the full polarization vector of the waves received by the radar should be measured. Polarimetric SARs were first demonstrated in the early 1980s, and made their debut in space with the SIR-C/X-SAR mission in 1994. By the end of the 1990’s several polarimetric airborne SAR systems were operating in the United States, Europe and Japan. As of the writing of this paper, both the German TerraSAR-X (X-band) and the Japanese ALOS PALSAR (L-Band) space missions offer fully polarimetric data in experimental models. This paper will provide an overview of the application of polarimetric SAR data to Earth remote sensing. Here we will illustrate only few of the topics that will be covered.