Fractal dimension estimation from fully polarimetric SAR data

Fractal dimension is widely recognized as key parameter for the geophysical characterization of natural surfaces. A technique for estimating the fractal dimension of a surface from range cuts of an amplitude SAR image has been recently developed by the authors. In this paper, we explore the potentiality of using fully polarimetric SAR data for the retrieval of the fractal dimension along the azimuth direction. This is obtained exploiting the Polarimetric Two-Scale model for the description of polarimetric data. In particular, specific polarimetric combinations are considered, which provide images with strong dependence on the azimuth slopes of the observed surface. The proposed technique is tested on actual fully polarimetric AirSAR L-band data.