Surface Parameters Retrieval from Fully Bistatic Radar Scattering Data

Abstract

Fully bistatic radar scattering from rough surfaces is of vital importance in terrain remote sensing, but results in bulky data volume. The scattering is dependent on physical parameters of the media and is controlled by the radar observation geometry. Together, the two sets of parameters determine the scattering patterns in a bistatic plane confined by incident and polar angles in both incident and scattering directions. For radar remote sensing, it is desirable to infer surface parameters of interest, with satisfactory accuracy, from large volumes of measured data sets. This is essentially a task of data mining. In this paper, we present model-generated bistatic radar scattering data, followed by a sensitivity analysis, to identify a suitable configuration in terms of parameter inversion from fully bistatic measurements by a Kalman filter-trained dynamic learning neural network (DLNN). Results indicate that with bistatic observation, superior retrieval performance (as compared to backscattering observation) can be readily achieved.