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Impact of cross‐polarization isolation on polarimetric target decomposition and target detection
Author(s) -
Xu Feng,
Wang Haipeng,
Jin YaQiu,
Liu Xiuqing,
Wang Robert,
Deng Yunkai
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
radio science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.371
H-Index - 84
eISSN - 1944-799X
pISSN - 0048-6604
DOI - 10.1002/2014rs005592
Subject(s) - polarimetry , remote sensing , synthetic aperture radar , polarization (electrochemistry) , detector , radar , computer science , terrain , geology , optics , physics , scattering , geography , telecommunications , chemistry , cartography
Cross‐polarization isolation is one of the key engineering parameters for a polarimetric radar system. Previous studies focused more on the calibration of cross‐talk contamination. This paper presents a numerical evaluation of the requirement for cross‐polarization isolation from the data users' perspective, i.e., the quantitative impact of polarization cross talk on polarimetric target decomposition and the associated applications such as classification and detection. Sensitivity analyses of several commonly used target decomposition parameters suggest that a theoretical lower bound of −32 dB isolation level is preferred to avoid any significant impact on these parameters. Our analyses with both simulated and real synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data show that a level of −25 dB would be acceptable for general terrain surface classification. This requirement is also true for man‐made target detection application. Using simulated SAR images of man‐made targets in natural environment, sensitivity analyses on two polarimetric detectors, Yang and Marino, both suggest that target detection performance would break down rapidly if isolation deteriorates from −25 dB to −20 dB.