Abstract
It has been recently shown that the TanDEM-X mission is capable of tracking the plant growth of rice paddies. The precision of the elevation measure depends on the physical interaction between the synthetic aperture radar (SAR) signal and the canopy. In this letter, this interaction is studied by considering the signal polarization. In particular, the vertical and horizontal wave polarizations are compared, and their performance in the temporal mapping of the crop height is analyzed. The temporal elevation difference analysis shows a monotonically increasing trend within the reproductive stage of the canopy, with maximum height discrepancies between polarizations of about 9 cm. From an operational point of view of InSAR-based vegetation height measurements, this letter demonstrates that the oriented structure of the canopy shall be considered not only in polarimetric InSAR studies but also in the interpretation of bistatic spaceborne interferometric elevation models.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 7063930 |
| Pages (from-to) | 1501-1505 |
| Number of pages | 5 |
| Journal | IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue number | 7 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Jul 2015 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2004-2012 IEEE.
Keywords
- Agriculture
- copolar phase difference (CPD)
- polarimetry
- synthetic aperture radar (SAR)
- TanDEM-X
- X-Band