Polarimetric SAR Interferometry: A Tutorial for Analyzing System Parameters

Polarimetry synthetic aperture radar (SAR) interferometry (PolInSAR) is a promising technology for globalscale forest-height mapping. Many PolInSAR space missions have been proposed or are under development. To ensure the performance of forest-height estimation, a critical study of the required system and platform parameters for the planned mission must be carried out. This involves theoretical modeling of wave scattering of the forest canopy, SAR imaging-simulation of polarimetric interferometry, implementation of a parameter-inversion algorithm, and error-budget analysis of forest-height retrieval.