Advances in SAR Polarimetry applications exploiting polarimetric spaceborne sensors

The SAR Polarimetry represents an active area of research in Radar Remote Sensing. This interest is clearly supported by the fact that nowadays there exists a non negligible quantity of launched Polarimetric SAR Spaceborne sensors. The aim of this communication is to present the current state of the art in SAR Polarimetry ranging from theory to applications, with special emphasis in the analysis of data provided by the new Polarimetric Spaceborne SAR sensors. A review of the current status of the PolSARpro v3.0 Software (Polarimetric SAR Data Processing and Educational Toolbox), developed under contract to ESA by a consortium comprising I.E.T.R at the University of Rennes 1, AELc, DLR-HR and Dr mark Williams from Adelaide is also made. The objective of this toolbox is to provide Educational Software that offers a tool for self-education in the field of Polarimetric SAR data analysis at University level and a comprehensive suite of functions for the scientific exploitation of fully and partially polarimetric multi-data sets and the development of applications for such data.