An Improved Forest Height Inversion Method Using Dual-Polarization PolInSAR Data

The Extended 3-stage method has somewhat improved the precision of estimating forest parameters of the traditional 3-stage inversion method. However, the topography phase and optimal volume coherence coefficient determined by this method are not really optimal, that lead to the forest parameters estimation of this method is unstable and inaccuracy. Therefore, this paper proposes an improved forest height inversion method by dual-polarization channel PolInSAR data to enhance the precision of forest parameters extraction. In the suggested approach, the surface phase is calculated based on the mean coherence set theory. A comprehensive search method is then proposed to determine the polarization channels corresponding to the optimal polarization channel coherence coefficients for the volume scattering component. The effectiveness of the suggested approach was assessed with simulation data from PolSARprosim 5.2 software. The empirical results show that the suggested approach not only improves the effectiveness of the forest parameters estimation of the extended 3-stage method but also reduces the complexity in the calculation. © 2020, ICST Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering.