Index of refraction estimation from Stokes parameters with diffuse scattering consideration

Remote sensing of the refractive index of a target surface has important application for detection and classification tasks. In this paper, we introduce a modified pBRDF model with a diffuse scattering term and apply it in the development of a method to jointly estimate the refractive index, slope variance roughness and diffuse scattering parameter from a series of Stokes parameter measurements of a surface. This work is a significant extension of prior work involving degree-of-polarization (DOP) measurements. Numerical trials are presented that indicate diffuse scattering can significantly affect the surface parameter estimation and estimation accuracy improves considerably by including the diffuse component in the scattering model. We also illustrate that using Stokes measurements for the estimation provides more accuracy than using DOP measurements for a limited number of observations. The estimation approach is applied to Stokes and DOP measurements of several material surfaces published previously in the literature and the parameter estimation produces curves that have excellent correspondence with the measurement values.

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