Polarimetric SAR Detection of Man-Made Structures Using Normalized Circular-pol Correlation Coefficients

Polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) backscatter from man-made structures is often quite different than scatter from predominantly natural areas. Backscatter from natural areas is often characterized by near zero values for linear-basis covariance matrix off- diagonal terms of the form <S_HVS*_HH> and <S_HVS*_VV>. A new approach is proposed to detect man-made structures using circular-pol RR-LL correlation coefficients. This method uses a normalization term, which enhances the return from man-made structures and eliminates most of the unnecessary details of the backscatter from natural areas.