Polarimetric sar in the sendai square-loop flight by Pi-SAR

Pi-SAR is an airborne polarimetric SAR system developed by NiCT and JAXA, Japan. This system has two independent radar systems of L-band and X-band. The X-band radar has interferomety and polarimetry functions and the L-band radar has polarimetric function. We acquired several data sets in Sendai, Japan for fundamental research of radar polarimetry and interfereometry. Among these data acquisitions, two data sets were acquired in multiple flight paths in a short time period, and polarimetric SAR image acquired from different angles are available. We found very clear azimuth incident angle dependency of the polarimetric SAR images. In addition, a square-loop fight was carried out in the same location in January 2004. The incident angle dependency of the SAR image in polarimetry in X-band is very clear in these SAR images. We found that the pahse difference in orthogonal cicular polarizatio has significant dependency on the azimuth incident angle. The data sets also has a very good potential for SAR radargrammetry. We discussed the possibility of application of polarimetric SAR data acquired from multiple directions.