Performance analysis of weak target detection via ground-based synthetic aperture radar

Abstract

Polarimetric Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (Pol-InSAR) is an emerging technique that combines interferometric SAR and polarimetric SAR techniques and has shown its effectiveness in the detection of buried weak targets. The detection performance is affected by the SAR parameters as well as the covering characteristics. In this paper, the effects of covering characteristics on the detection performance were emphasized and experimentally investigated by a ground-based Pol-InSAR system. Firstly, the detection principle for buried weak target by Pol-InSAR technique was presented, which is based on the use of interferometric coherence variation with polarization. Then the ground-based two dimensional rail (TDR) SAR used for investigation was introduced. Furthermore, the experiment target scene was designed and the effects of different covering type, different covering moisture, and different covering depth on the detection performance of weak targets were shown and analyzed. Preliminary results confirmed the effectiveness of Pol-InSAR technique used for weak target detection and it would be helpful for the further investigation of this technique.