Polarimetric 3-D Reconstruction from Multi-Circular SAR at P-Band

Multi-circular SAR (MCSAR) is an extension of circular SAR (CSAR) characterized by the formation of a synthetic aperture in elevation with several circular flights. This imaging mode allows an improved resolution in the plane perpendicular to the line of sight (LOS_), thus, suppressing the 3-D coneshaped sidelobes that are formed when focusing with CSAR. This work presents the first polarimetric MCSAR airborne experiment acquired at P-band by DLR’s F-SAR system over a forested area in Vordemwald, Switzerland. This letter also includes a phase calibration method based on the singular value decomposition (SVD) using ground signatures to estimate constant phase offsets within a stack of 2-D images. Focusing methods, such as fast factorized back projection (FFBP), beamforming (BF) and compressive sensing (CS), described in previous publications are used to solve the complex eflectivity in the (x, y, z) space