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Published on: September 5, 2019
Dual Circular Polarized Drone-Borne SAR for Polarimetric Target Classification: System Development and Experimental
Dimas Biwas Putra1, Yuta Izumi1, Fathin Nurzaman1
1Graduate School of Engineering, Muroran Institute of Technology, Muroran 050-8585, Japan.
Sensors (Basel, Switzerland)
|July 15, 2026
Summary
A new K-band drone-borne dual circular polarimetric (DCP) SAR system offers rapid terrain classification for post-disaster assessment. This system enables on-demand analysis, overcoming limitations of satellite Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) revisit times.
Area of Science:
- Remote Sensing
- Geoscience
- Radar Technology
Background:
- Post-disaster scenarios like tsunamis necessitate immediate terrain assessment.
- Satellite Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) revisit times are often too long for rapid response.
- A deployable system for on-demand terrain classification is currently lacking.
Purpose of the Study:
- To present an off-the-shelf K-band drone-borne dual circular polarimetric (DCP) SAR system.
- To develop a processing pipeline for on-demand terrain classification using DCP SAR.
- To demonstrate the utility of DCP SAR for rapid post-disaster terrain assessment.
Main Methods:
- Utilized a K-band drone-borne dual circular polarimetric (DCP) SAR system.
- Implemented RTK Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) guided time-domain backprojection (TDBP) with phase gradient autofocus (PGA) for motion compensation.
- Applied single-target wire calibration to correct inter-channel complex gain differences and performed H/α decomposition.
Main Results:
- Achieved an 11.98 dB improvement in peak amplitude using TDBP with PGA.
- Corrected an 8.91 dB inter-channel complex gain difference via calibration.
- Successfully classified canonical reflectors, artificial structures, gravel roads, vegetation, and a pond surface using H/α decomposition of calibrated DCP data.
Conclusions:
- The developed drone-borne DCP SAR system provides a practical solution for rapid terrain assessment.
- Compact polarimetric H/α decomposition is effective for terrain discrimination with drone-borne SAR data.
- This technology establishes a pathway for timely post-disaster response and analysis.
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