A PROPOSED FRAMEWORK TO UNMIX SCATTERING MECHANISMS OF POLARIMETRIC RADAR IMAGES USING VERY HIGH RESOLUTION OPTICAL IMAGES

Abstract. A new approach has been proposed for radar and optical image fusion. Candidate images for fusion are polarimetric radar images and very high resolution stereoscopic optical images. The fused product is expected to produce more reliable large scale land cover classifications. In the first part of this paper, observation-based state-of-the-art methods for optical and radar image fusion are discussed. The idea of unmixing physical radar scattering mechanisms with the optical images has been proposed as a suitable means to improve the resolution of the polarimetric radar images. The second part focuses on a general description of the target algorithm. The suggested physical approach simulating synthetic scattering matrices with stereoscopic optical images is developed. Finally, future work to develop this unmixing algorithm is discussed.