MATHEMATICAL BASIS THEORY OF THE POLARIMETRY AND ITS APPLICATION IN RADAR DOMAIN

In conventional radar systems, scientists have focused their efforts in the measurement of the amplitude, the frequency or the differential phase of the received wave versus the incident one, to improve the determination of the characteristic parameters of a radar target, such as the shape, the range or the relative doppler from the radar. Front the needs ceaselessly increasing to improve the performances of the systems, systems working in an environment which is more and more hostile (chaff, jamming, clutter, etc.), scientists have to deal with the vectorial aspect of the received wave by including the notion of polarization. The polarization state of the backscattered wave carriers informations, and completes datas that is possible to extract from the wave backscattered by the target. Searches in this field have given rise to a new theory in the radar domain : the polarimetry. This article describes the mathematical basis theory of the polarimetry for its application in radar domain.