Polarimetric SAR Image Segmentation with B-Splines and a New Statistical Model

SAR sensors work on the microwaves spectrum, so they are almost immune to adverse weather conditions and they are able to penetrate, to some extent, the surface of certain targets. The first civilian SAR satellite was launched in 1978, and it was followed by a constellation of other similar sensors, mostly devoted to specific applications and in all cases operated at a single frequency and polarization. The Shuttle Imaging Radar-C/X-band SAR (SIRC/XSAR), launched in 1994, could be operated simultaneously at three frequencies, with two of them able to transmit and receive at both horizontal and vertical polarization. This polarimetric capability provides a more complete description of the target [46]. Polarimetric images are multiple complex-valued data sets requiring, thus, specialized models and algorithms.