Iceberg Detection Using Compact Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar

In recent years, the use of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) for iceberg detection has been increasing thanks to the greater availability and coverage of SAR data, particularly polarimetric data. Greater amounts of polarimetric information can increase detection performance, preventing false alarms and missed detections. However, quad-polarization (quad-pot) SAR systems have increased data rate and power usage requirements, causing quad-pot modes to have generally half the swath width of dual-polarization (dual-pot) modes. Compact polarimetry is a compromise that allows the approximation of quad-pot information (referred to as "pseudo quad-pot") using a dual-pot SAR. In this paper, using compact polarimetric data simulated from RADARSAT-2 quad-pot imagery, we show how pseudo-quad-pot data can be used for iceberg detection using the likelihood ratio test method. We show that use of the pseudo-quad-pot HV intensity can augment the detection performance of a compact polarimetric SAR system. We also compare the performance of the various compact polarimetric configurations to linearly polarized dual-pot and quad-pot data.