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Polarimetric Description of Scatterers

Abstract - In the case of radar remote sensing applications a wave is transmitted scattered by a target on the ground and the echo is received. This means we know the transmitted wave, and the received (scattered) wave. Both waves can be represented by a vector as shown in the previous section. The transfomation from the transmitted wave vector to the received wave vector is a linear transformation which can be described by a matrix. This matrix contains all the information we have about the scattering process. If we neglect or correct the influences on the propagation path, this matrix describes the scatterer on the ground. Therefore, the analysis of these matrices is used to analyse the data and extract information.

keywords: Jones Matrix, S -matrix, Müller Matrix, Kennaugh matix, Scattering vector, Non-deterministic scatterers




Two different representations of scatterers are commonly used in literature, the Jones matrix or [S]-matrix and the Müller- or Kennaugh matrix. Both matrices yield the relation between the vectors incident and scattered wave and therefore the information about the scatterer [Zebker87]. The Jones Matrix is used for the Jones vector representation oft the wave, while the Müller Matrix is used for the Stokes vector representation.



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Next: The Jones Matrix Up: SAR Polarimetry Tutorial (Beta Previous: Plane Wave Representation   Contents