Compact polarimetric SAR product and calibration considerations for target analysis

Compact polarimetric (CP) data exploitation is currently of growing interest considering the new generation of such Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) systems. These systems offer target detection and classification capabilities comparable to those of polarimetric SARs (PolSAR) with less stringent requirements. A good example is the RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM). In this paper, some characteristic CP products are described and effects of CP mode deviation from ideal circular polarization transmit on classifications are modeled. The latter is important for operation of typical CP modes (e.g., RCM). The developed model can be used to estimate the ellipticity variation from CP measured data, and hence, calibrate the classification products.