LAUSR

In this article, a modified four-component decomposition method with refined volume scattering models is proposed for polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image processing. In the new decomposition method, after the orientation angle compensation, the orientation angle is placed in the probability density functions. General forms of the volume scattering models and branch conditions can be obtained. Similar to the four-component scattering power decomposition with extended volume scattering model (S4R) proposed by Sato et al., refined volume scattering models can be used for various land covers based on the criteria. Since the orientation angles are contained in the refined volume scattering models, the oriented buildings can be discriminated from the vegetation areas and the overestimation problem of volume scattering is substantially overcome. In this article, the performance of the proposed method is evaluated by the spaceborne C-band Gaofen-3 data and airborne L-band E-SAR data. Several approaches are employed as a comparison of the proposed methods. Experimental results show that, compared with the existing decomposition methods, the proposed method can effectively represent the scattering characteristics of the ambiguous regions, and the double-bounce scattering contributions over the urban areas can be substantially enhanced.