Synthetic-aperture multi-polarization radar data informativity enhancement technique

Authors

  • Аrtur Lysenko Scientific Centre for Aerospace Research of the Earth of the Institute of Geological Sciences of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Olesia Honchara Str., 55-b, Kyiv, 01054, Ukraine https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2923-8648

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.36023/ujrs.2023.10.3.243

Keywords:

synthetic-aperture radar (SAR), dielectric permittivity, superresolution, subpixel processing, informativity, spatial resolution, radar backscattering coefficient

Abstract

The informativeness of satellite images is an integral component that determines the ability of satellite data for solving thematic problems, and its improvement is a relevant task nowadays. Radar tools of remote sensing of the Earth allow, in contrast to optical systems, to remotely sense data in cloudy conditions and at night. The paper established and described the relationship between the spatial resolution of the image and its informativity, which led to a decision of increasing the spatial resolution parameter in order to increase the informativity of the satellite image. For data preprocessing a corresponding algorithm is given. The article describes the problem of inconsistency of different polarization radar data. Improved radar backscatter models are used, using the developed special objective function model, to transform radar data into a single physical property. The dielectric constant of the Earth's surface was chosen as such property. A model and algorithm for subpixel-shifted images spatial resolution enhancement were applied to the images converted to dielectric permittivity. As a result, a spatial distribution of the dielectric constant in a form of an image with increased spatial resolution was obtained. For quantitative assessment of the spatial resolution the spatial-frequency analysis with parameterization of the experimentally determined transient characteristic is used. Quantitative assessment of preprocessed real two-polarization mode radar images, obtained from Sentinel-1, spatial resolution enhancement showed a 38.63% gain. The described approach for radar data informativity enhancement, as well as all necessary models and algorithms, were combined into a single adaptive Synthetic-aperture multi-polarization radar data informativity enhancement technique.

Key words: synthetic-aperture radar (SAR), dielectric permittivity, superresolution, subpixel processing, informativity, spatial resolution, radar backscattering coefficient

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Published

2023-09-29

Issue

Vol. 10 No. 3 (2023)

Section

Techniques for Earth observation data acquisition, processing and interpretation

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