Current Shortcomings of the Standard Formulations of Radar Polarization
Abstract
The basic principles of radar polarimetry rely heavily on the well established formulations of Optical Polarimetry by Mueller and Jones [ 1, 6]; and many features have been taken over nearly word by word by Kennaugh, Huynen, and others - for developing a standard nomenclature of radar polarimetry [4,5; 15]. This includes in particular the notion of polarization descriptors like the polarization ellipse, Jones (Sinclair) vector representation, Sinclair and Kennaugh back-scattering matrices for coherent and incoherent scattering, coherency (covariance) matrices for polarized light and distributed scatterers. A characteristic new feature in monostatic and bistatic scattering is the necessity to consider simultaneously the polarization properties of plane electromagnetic waves propagating in and/or in opposite directions. The standard optics based formulation is to use a local right-handed wave oriented coordinate system, and to introduce the so-called `Forward Scattering Alignment' (FSA) convention, which was also adopted unfortunately for the IEEE Standards [12]. This formulation is logically consistent but leads to mathematical difficulties in case optimal polarizations like maximal and minimal power transfer to a receiving antenna are considered for the radar case. The standard procedure in radar polarimetry to resolve this problem is ingenious and truly of considerable mathematical interest, for which in general the Back (Bistatic) Scattering Alignment (BSA) is used [5, 12].
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Aug 28, 2005
- Accession Number
- ADA457747
Entities
People
- E. Luneburg