Full polarimetry versus partial polarimetry for quantitative surface parameter estimation

The performance difference between full polarimetry (fp) and partial polarimetry (pp) systems is still an important open question according to Imbo and Souyris (2000) and Lee et al. (1995), especially in the frame of future low-cost spaceborne SAR studies. The aim of this paper is to briefly present a fully polarimetric model, the recent F-Bragg model (Breuer et al., (2002, 2003)), and compare it to its restriction to partial polarimetry. In a second step the inversion possibilities of fp and pp F-Bragg are investigated.