MODELING BACKSCATTER REFLECTIVITY OF KU-BAND SAR ON PERIODIC STRUCTURES

Recently airborne SAR at very high frequencies, such as X-and Ku-bands, has been widely studied for many applications. In these studies, the backscatter properties at different frequencies have been well discussed. However, these properties of the urban objects and structures have not been sufficiently discussed yet. In this paper, we focus on evaluating the difference of Ku- and X-band SAR intensity of the man-made objects. Multi-frequency simultaneous airborne SAR observation from the same platform under the same condition enables to evaluate subtle difference of backscatter intensity from the periodic structures. This experiment shows that strong backscatter reflectivity of periodic structures is observed under the influence of Bragg scatter. The effect that the periodicity of the surface structures make a difference in multi-frequency SAR reflectance needs to be considered in SAR analysis especially for building structures in urban areas.