Three-component Decomposition based on

Stokes Vector for Compact Polarimetric SAR

under /4 mode
#
Hanning Wang 1, Zhimin Zhou 1, Raja Syamsul Azmir Raja Abudullah 2, Qian Song 1, Khairul Khaizi Mohd
Shariff 3
1
School of Electronic Science and Engineering, National University of Defense Technology,
Changsha 410073, China, wanghanning2012@gmail.com
2
Department of Computer and Communication Systems Engineering, University Putra Malaysia,
Serdang Selangor 43400, Malaysia
3
School of Electrical, Electronic and System Engineering, University of Birmingham,
Birmingham B152TT, UK

Abstract This paper formulates a Stokes vector (SV) based
decomposition algorithm for compact polarimetric (CP) SAR
under /4 mode. The three-component scattering model is first
established by using the relationship between covariance matrix
and SV, and then the contribution of each component is
estimated from algebraic calculation. To solve the
underdetermined equations for /4 decomposition, the
contribution of volume scattering is taken as a free parameter,
under the constraint that the weighting factor of each scattering
component should be nonnegative. The feasibility of this
algorithm is supported by two data sets from AIRSAR and
RADARSAT-2 respectively.
Keywordscompact polarimetric SAR; Stokes vector; three-
component decomposition; /4 mode
I. INTRODUCTION
The fully polarimetric (FP) SAR technique, which takes two
orthogonal polarizations for both transmission and reception,
has received a considerable amount of attention for its
capabilities concerning information acquisition. However, FP
SAR requires a double pulse repetition frequency (PRF) to be
applied, with the disadvantage of a lower swath coverage,
higher data storage requirement and a more complicated
system design.
The compact polarimetric (CP) SAR transmits only one
polarization and receives two polarizations. Therefore, it
acquires more target information than the traditional single
polarimetric SAR, while avoiding the drawbacks caused by
high PRF [3]. According to the combination of polarization
states, three typical CP SAR modes have been proposed,
namely: /4, dual circular polarization (DCP), and the circular
transmit while linear receive (CTLR). For CP SAR research,
lots of exploration has been made to extract scattering
characterizations with similar finesse to that derived from a FP
system.
Decomposition is an effective way to analyze the scattering
feature of targets. Inspired by the decomposition methods for
FP SAR, several widely used CP decomposition algorithms
have been proposed and improved, such as pseudo FP
construction [2] [3], CP H decomposition [17] and CP

covariance matrix decomposition [12]. Moreover, Stocks
vector (SV), which has been widely applied to optical research,
is also investigated for CP decomposition. By using the
polarization degree and relative phase calculated from SV,
Raney proposed the well known m decomposition for CP

SAR under CTLR and DCP modes [4]. Cloude extended this
idea to a compact decomposition theory in SV form [11].
In this paper, we focus on the SV based three-component
decomposition for CP SAR under /4 mode. We first establish
the three-component model from the relationship between
covariance matrix and SV. In order to solve the
underdetermined equations for /4 decomposition, the
contribution of volume scattering is taken as a free parameter,
thus giving a complete set of solutions in an explicit format.
According to the constraint that all weighting factors should be
nonnegative, the value range of the free parameter is obtained
by solving corresponding inequalities. To validate the
effectiveness of this algorithm, San Francisco data from
AIRSAR are used for testing.
Section II introduces the three-component models for /4
mode. Section III presents the deduction of decomposition.
Section IV demonstrates the performance of this algorithm by
real remote sensing data. Conclusions and suggestion for future
works are given in section V.
II. THREE-COMPONENT MODEL
Three stages are taken in turn to relate SV to decomposition
theory: To begin with, we establish a three-component model
of FP covariance matrix; the FP model is then transformed into
the coherency matrix; finally the coherency matrix is mapped
into SV to get the model under /4 mode.
A. Three-component model of FP covariance matrix
In a multi-look polarimetric SAR image, the scattering
characteristics of each pixel can be represented by a

978-1-4673-7297-8/15/$31.00 2015
c IEEE 38
covariance matrix. In the three-component decomposition t11 t12 t13 2 A0 C jD H + jG
theory, the covariance matrix is modeled as the contribution of T = t12 t22 t23 = C + jD B0 + B E + jF

(9)
three scattering mechanisms: volume, double-bounce, and
surface scatterings. According to [1], the three-component t13 t23

t33 H jG E jF B0 B 
model of fully polarimetric (FP) covariance matrix is given by: Using (8) and (9), the SV of the scattered wave is related to the
1 0 1 3 2 0 2 0 coherency matrix

C FP = fv 0 2 3 0 + f d 0 0 0 + f s 0 0 0 (1) 1
(t + t + t ) + Re(t13 )
* 0 1 * g 0 2 11 22 33
1 3 0 1 0 1 g
Re(t12 ) + Re(t23 )
g s / 4 = 1 =  (10)
Where fv , fd and f s are weighting factors of each g2 1
(t11 t22 + t33 ) + Re(t13 )
component. g3 2
Im(t12 ) Im(t23 )
B. Transforming covariance matrix to coherency matrix
The three-component model based on SV is derived from (4)
The coherency matrix of monostatic FP SAR is based on the and (10) as
Pauli vector. The relation between covariance matrix and the
g0 2 | |2 +1 | |2 +1
coherency matrix is given by g 0
+ fd | | 1 + f S | | 1
2 2
2f
T = UC FPU T (2) gs /4 = 1 = V (11)
g2 3 1 2 + 2 +
Where
j( ) j( )

g3 0
1 0 1
1
U= 1 0 1 (3) III. THREE-COMPONENT DECOMPOSITION FOR /4 MODE
2 
0 2 0 The essence of three-component decomposition is to
estimate all those unknowns in (11). However, there are only 4
According to (1) and (2), we obtain the three-component model
of the coherency matrix constraint equations, while the number of unknowns is 7. Even
setting = 1 or = 1 according to Freeman and Durdens
2 0 0 | |2 + + + 1 | |2 + 1 0
2 1 theory, we still cant fix the remaining 5 unknowns. In order to
T = fv 0 1 0 + fd | |2 + 1 | |2 + 1 0
3 2 solve the underdetermined equations, we take the volume
0 0 1 0 0 0
scattering component as a free parameter, with the constraint
| |2 + + + 1 | |2 + 1 0 that all weighting factors should be nonnegative.
1 2 Setting x = 4 fV and substituting it into (11), the rest
+ fs | | + 1 | |2 + 1 0 (4)
2 3

0 0 0 
scattering model (RSM) is given by
C. Mapping coherency matrix to SV g0 x | |2 +1 | |2 +1
g
= f d | | 1 + f s | | 1
2 2
For /4 mode, the SV of the transmitted wave is given by 1
(12)
g2 0.5x 2 + 2 + 

gt 4 = [1 0 1 0]
T
(5)
j( ) j ( )

The SV of the scattered wave is related to that of the incident g3
wave by Mueller matrix With the same idea of Freeman-Durden decomposition [1], we
gs 4 = Mgt 4 (6) reduce unknowns by fixing = 1 or = 1 according to the
The Mueller matrix can be expressed by Huynan parameters as sign of Re( f d + f s ) , which is expressed as
A0 + B0 C H F sign Re ( fd + f s ) = sign ( g2 0.5x ) (13)
C A0 + B E G
M = (7)
H E A0 B D  A. Calculation of unknowns when g 2 > 0.5 x

F G D A0 B0 According to the discussion above, is fixed as -1 when
Therefore, the SV of the scattered wave is written as g 2 > 0.5 x , and (12) becomes
A0 + B0 + H g0 x 2 | |2 +1
C+E g 0
= fd + f s | | 1
2
g s / 4 = (8) 1
(14)
H + A0 B  g2 0.5x 2 2 2 + 

F D g3 0 j( )

Notice that the coherency matrix can also be expressed by The rest unknowns are derived as
Huyen parameters as
g1 + g0 + g2 1.5x jg3
= (15)
g1 + g0 + g2 1.5x + jg3 

2015 IEEE 5th Asia-Pacific Conference on Synthetic Aperture Radar(APSAR) 39

 ( g1 g0 g2 + 1.5x)2 + g32 IV. VALUE ESTIMATION OF X
fs = (16)
2( g0 + g2 1.5x) The difficult part of our algorithm is to estimate the value of
( g0 + g2 1.5x)( g0 g2 0.5x) g12 g32
the unknown parameter x. Based on the analysis above, two
fd = (17) preliminary methods for value estimation are proposed:
2( g0 + g2 1.5x)
(a) Define x = px1 , 0 p 1 . The suitable value of p is
From the constraint that all weighting factors are nonnegative, investigated according to the quality of decomposition.
x must satisfy the following three inequalities:
(b) Estimating S HV 2 using the reconstruction method
( g0 g2 0.5x)( g0 + g2 1.5x) g12 g32 0 (18)
g0 + g2 1.5x > 0 (19) proposed in [3], the value of x is then derived as
x0 (20) {
x = min 4 S HV
2
, x1 } (33)
Together with the prerequisite g 2 > 0.5 x , the value range of x is
Here x1 is taken as the threshold to curb the overestimation of
given by volume scattering contribution.
x [0, xmax
(1)
] [ x2 , xmax
(2)
] (21)
Where V. PERFORMANCE DEMONSTRATION
2
(1)
x
max = min x1 , 2 g2 , ( g0 + g2 ) (22) Two FP data sets are taken for demonstration. One is the
3  AIRSAR data over San Francisco, and the other is the
2 RARSAT-2 data over Flevoland. In order to analyze the
(2)
xmax = min 2 g2 , ( g0 + g2 ) (23)
3 performance of the proposed decomposition method, we
measure the classification conformity degree of /4 mode to FP
4 g g
x1 = ( g0 2 ) ( g0 2 )2 3( g02 g12 g 22 g32 ) (24) mode. Two criteria for measurement are adopted as:
3 2 2 a) Conformity degree to FP mode for each class (CDC)
4 g g b) Averaged conformity degree for the whole image (ADI)
x2 = ( g0 2 ) + ( g0 2 )2 3( g02 g12 g 22 g32 ) (25)
3 2 2 A. AIRSAR data over San Francisco
From (21), the value range of x contains two intervals. The image over San Francisco is with the size of 900h700.
However, for each pixel in the polarimetric SAR images we This area contains forests, urban areas and the sea. Fig. 1(a)
have tested, xmax
( 2) (1)
is less than x2 and xmax = x1 . Thus we only shows the pseudo color image of the decomposition result
consider x [0, x1 ] in the following analysis and processing. under FP mode using the improved Freeman-Durden
decomposition algorithm [14]. In this figure, the three colors
After calculation we determine the contribution of each
scattering mechanism in the span red, green and blue correspond to Pv , Pd and Ps respectively.
Pv = x (26) Classifying each pixel with the largest component, for
example, the pixel is classified as a volume scatter if its Pv is
Pd =
fd
2
( 2
)
(g + g 1.5x)( g0 g2 0.5x) g12 g32
+1 = 0 2
2(g0 + g2 1.5x)
(27) larger than Pd and Ps , the result is shown in Fig. 1(b).

Ps =
fs
2
( 2
)
( g + g 2 1.5 x ) 2 + g12 + g 32
+1 = 0
2( g 0 + g 2 1.5 x )
(28)

B. Calculation of unknowns when g 2 > 0.5 x

is fixed as 1 when g 2 > 0.5 x . With the similar calculation,
the contribution of each scattering mechanism is obtained as
Pv = x (29)
( g0 g2 0.5x)2 + g12 + g32
Pd = (30) (a) Pseudo color image (b) Classification
2( g0 g2 0.5x)
Fig. 1. Three-component decomposition under FP mode
( g g 2 0.5 x )( g 0 + g 2 1.5 x ) g12 g 32 The original data were smoothed with a 7 7 pixel window
Ps = 0 (31)
2( g 0 g 2 0.5 x ) Decomposing the data under /4 mode with different values of
Where p, the corresponding ADI is depicted in Fig. 2.
x [0, x1 ] (32)

40 2015 IEEE 5th Asia-Pacific Conference on Synthetic Aperture Radar(APSAR)

 0.8

0.75

ADI 0.7

0.65

0.6

0.55

0.5

0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 (a) Pseudo color image (b) Classification
p
Fig. 5. Three-component decomposition under FP mode
Fig. 2. ADI under different values of p
The original data were smoothed with a 7 7 pixel window
Of the values of p tested, ADI reaches a maximum when p = Decomposing the data under /4 mode with different values of
0.65, and the corresponding decomposition results are shown in p, and ADI reaches a maximum when p = 0.7, as presented in
Fig. 3. Fig. 4 demonstrates the decomposition results after FP Fig.6. Decomposition results in this case are shown in Fig. 7.
reconstruction [3]. Fig. 8 demonstrates the decomposition results after FP
reconstruction.

0.8

0.75

ADI
0.7

(a) Pseudo color image (b) Classification 0.65

Fig. 3. Three-component decomposition under /4 mode when p = 0.65

The original data were smoothed with a 7 7 pixel window 0.6
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
p

Fig. 6. ADI under different values of p

(a) Pseudo color image (b) Classification

Fig. 4. Three-component decomposition under /4 mode after FP
reconstruction
The original data were smoothed with a 7 7 pixel window (a) Pseudo color image (b) Classification
Comparing the above two decompositions in terms of CDC
and ADI, results are shown in TABLE I. Fig. 7. Three-component decomposition under /4 mode when p = 0.7
The original data were smoothed with a 7 7 pixel window
TABLE I COMPARISON BY CDC AND ADI
CDC Comparing the these two decompositions in terms of CDC and
Decomposition ADI
Volume Double Surface ADI, results are shown in TABLE II.
x = 0.65 x1 74.24% 82.50% 86.72% 81.15%
TABLE II COMPARISON BY CDC AND ADI
FP reconstruction 72.57% 69.37% 91.17% 77.70% CDC
Decomposition ADI
Volume Double Surface
x = 0.65 x1 81.72% 89.87% 75.56% 82.23%
B. RADARSAT-2 data over Flevoland
The image over Flevoland was acquired by RADARSAT-2, FP reconstruction 62.53% 83.65% 79.86% 75.35%
with the image size of 1108 811. Fig.5 shows the
decomposition results under FP mode.

2015 IEEE 5th Asia-Pacific Conference on Synthetic Aperture Radar(APSAR) 41


(a) Pseudo color image (b) Classification
Fig. 8. Three-component decomposition under /4 mode after FP
reconstruction
The original data were smoothed with a 7 7 pixel window
VI. CONCLUSIONS
This paper formulates a three-component decomposition
algorithm for the /4 mode based on SV. The explicit
expression of decomposition results is derived by setting the
contribution of volume scattering as a free parameter, within
the constraint that the contribution of each scattering
component should be nonnegative. Demonstration results
show that, this algorithm can achieve a high classification
conformity to FP mode, when the value of the free parameter
is properly chosen. Of the two data sets taken for validation,
they have similar curves of p and ADI, and the optimum
values of p are close to each other. The decomposition results
after FP reconstruction also have an acceptable conformity to
FP mode. Exploring a more general and accurate method to
estimate the contribution of volume scattering is suggested for
future works.
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