A polarimetric projection-based scattering characteristics extraction tool and its application to PolSAR image classification

It is necessary to adequately extract scattering characteristics from polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) data for land-cover classification. Current interpretation technologies, such as target decompositions, polarimetric signatures, and polarimetric coherence patterns, have been widely used to explore polarization information. However, because limited scattering models are used to characterize all ground targets, these methods are occasionally limited in the interpretation of PolSAR data. This may reduce the accuracy of the landcover classification. In this study, we attempted to extract the scattering characteristics through another novel method. We understand the PolSAR image interpretation as the projection of the scattering model on the measured matrix. Current methods project only a limited series of scattering models onto a measured matrix. To complement current methods of PolSAR image interpretation, we propose a polarimetric projection-based scattering characteristics extraction (PPSCE) method. It projects scattering models consisting of four changing independent polarization parameters onto the measured matrix. These scattering models, associated with the geometric and physical properties of the ground targets, correspond to the entire polarization space. The PPSCE method, meanwhile, extracts polarization information sufficiently. L-band UAVSAR, C-band Radarsat-2, and Pband AIRSAR images of classical experimental areas are used to validate the PPSCE method. The results show that the proposed PPSCE method can present polarization information that is difficult to investigate by the existing methods. In addition, the scattering features derived using the PPSCE method are superior for land-cover classification. Compared to the classification results based on the coherency matrix and Wishart classifier, the proposed method improves the overall classification accuracy by 23.56% for UAVSAR data. Compared to target decompositions and polarization signatures, the overall classification accuracy of the proposed method is increased by 29.32% (RF) and 22.63% (SVM) for UAVSAR data, 7.96% (RF) and 4.36% (RF) for Radarsat-2 and AIRSAR datasets, respectively. Furthermore, the proposed method has significant potential for soil moisture inversion. https://rgdoi.net/10.13140/RG.2.2.14091.26409.