Comparison of hybrid-Pol with quad-Pol scheme based on polarimetric information content

Recently, there has been growing interest in dual-polarimetric (dual-Pol) systems, especially in hybrid-Pol mode. In comparison to quad-Pol systems, a dual-Pol system has the advantage of halved average transmitted power and doubled swath coverage. In this article, we present a comparison of information provided by hybrid-Pol and quad-Pol synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data. To be compared, hybrid-Pol data are converted to pseudo-quad-Pol data using compact polarimetric scattering models. We have further compared both configurations based on the information extractable about the scattering process. The scattering contribution of each of the three basic scattering mechanisms, namely single bounce, double bounce and volume scattering, can be evaluated by Freeman and Durden decomposition techniques. Applying such a decomposition technique to quad-Pol and pseudo-quad-Pol data, we evaluate and compare the scattering contribution of each of the three basic scattering mechanisms for clusters of pixels in polarimetric SAR images.