SARTREK Newsletter: December 2001

In This Issue:

1. RADARSAT-2: Innovation in Earth Observation
2. Enhancing Sea-Ice Monitoring with RADARSAT-2
3. Program and Operations Update: The RADARSAT-2 SAR Payload
4. Business Development: Building Operational Applications - SAR
5. Did You Know

RADARSAT-2: Innovation in Earth Observation

Momentum continues to grow in the RADARSAT-2 program as we move closer to 2002. Research projects are underway around the world, and as results are received, we have compiled the information into an overview presentation-complete with image samples. This overview addresses potential RADARSAT-2 applications and is intended as a resource for you and your peers.

RADARSAT-2 Overview (PDF file: 547 KB)

Enhancing Sea-Ice Monitoring with RADARSAT-2

Through the Earth Observation Application Development Program (EOADP) the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) awarded a project to MacDonald Dettwiler (MDA) and RADARSAT International to investigate the use of multi-polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) products for operational sea-ice monitoring. The key objectives of this project were to:

• identify how multi-polarimetric data from RADARSAT-2 can be used to enhance Canada's operational capability for sea-ice monitoring
• specify multi-polarimetric derived products for sea-ice monitoring and identify operational improvements to the RADARSAT-2 mission enhancing delivery of sea-ice information.

Full Story

Program and Operations Update: The RADARSAT-2 SAR Payload

The most significant difference in the RADARSAT-2 payload technology relative to RADARSAT-1 is that it uses a fully active phased array antenna, rather than the passive slotted waveguide antenna of RADARSAT-1. Fully- active phased arrays offer a number of very significant benefits over passive antenna, but they also add great complexity.

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Business Development: Building Operational Applications - SAR

RADARSAT International teamed with CSA and CCRS to put on a session at the Advanced SAR Workshop held in October 3, 2001 at CSA in St. Hubert, Quebec. This special session was designed to examine how on-going R&D efforts by various SAR researchers can be bridged into the operational user domain in the application areas of agriculture, hydrology (water management) and surveillance.

Full Story

Did You Know

• Anisotropy: A
  This is the measure of how homogeneous a target is relative to the radar look direction. For example, the Amazon forest is a very homogeneous target and would have a low anisotropy value. In contrast, row crops would have a high anisotrophy value.
• Alpha:
  Alpha Angle. If the Entropy is close to 0, the alpha angle provides the nature of the dominant scattering mechanism for that resolution cell. For example it will identify if the scattering is volume, surface or double bounce.
• Entropy: H
  This is a measure of the dominance of a given scattering mechanism within a resolution cell. It provides a value between 0 and 1 where a value of 0 identifies that all scattering comes from one mechanism (such as a flat surface or a tall building [double bounce]), and a value of 1 represents a completely random scattering mechanism.
• Multi-polarimetric analysis
  This allows for the comparison between different bands or channels from the sensor. In RADARSAT-2 terms, it allows the comparison between, for example, HH and HV or VV and HV. A typical analysis technique is deriving a ratio between two channels. For example: the ratio of HV:HH provides a relative measure of volume scattering (HV) versus surface scattering (HH).
• Polarimetry analysis For polarimetry analysis, both the amplitude and phase information are retained and used for quantitative analysis. The outputs will provide information as input for classification algorithms. One type of classification scheme is the H/A/Alpha classifier, which was used in the "Enhancing Sea- Ice Monitoring with RADARSAT-2" story in this newsletter issue.