Inferring the Dielectric Properties of Oil Slick from Multifrequency SAR imagery via a Polarimetric Two-Scale Model

Abstract

We apply a polarimetric two-scale model to multifrequency synthetic aperture radar imagery of verified oil slicks measured by DLRs F-SAR instrument, which can acquire high spatial resolution and high signal-to-noise data. The purpose, is to determine the permittivity of the scattering surface via an inversion procedure. The ocean surface is modelled as an ensemble of randomly orientated, tilted facets for which the small perturbation model is assumed valid under the condition of no tilt. Only co-polarization channels are utilized due to system noise, hampering the signal within the cross-polarization channels. Results yield realistic results for the permittivity of oil slick.