Polarimetry is the technique to evalute the physical phenomenon of polarisation including the measurement, the processing and the interpretation of the polarisation state of an electromagnetic wave. Polarization states are described by the scattering elipse and the Jones Vector formalism. Especially the polarization states after interaction with the media under investigation are mostly investigated to estimate media properties and states. The mostly observed fully polarimetric observation basis is H,V up to now with the single observations: HH HV, VH, VV. The concept of polarization synthesis allows to acquire fully polarimetric observations in one basis (e.g. H,V) and transform them into any other orthgonal basis (e.g. left, right circular) by a mathematical transformation in post processing. Polarimetric States are stored in different mathematical formats: Scattering matrix, polarimetric coherences , Stokes vector, Pauli-vector, lexicographic vector, coherency and covariance matrices. These mathematical representations can be decomposed according to the contained elementary scattering mechanisms in the recorded signal. The so-called polarimetric decomposition technique allow signal unmixing for differnt scattering components (e.g. from soil & vegetation). The techniques range from mathematics-based until physics-based concepts and are developed since decades starting with Huynen in 1970.
Discuss the polarimetry technique
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