Development of Classification Criteria For Dominant Scattering From the Lunar Surface: An Application of MiniSAR Data

Abstract The dominant scattering volume, surface, and double-bounce, as retrieved from the hybrid or compact polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data of the lunar surface, are found to be intermingled. These dominant scattering can also lead to ambiguous interpretation of volume, surface, and double-bounce scattering due to uncertainty in the transmission of a perfectly circular Electromagnetic (EM) wave. Hence, classification criteria are proposed to identify volume, surface, and double-bounce dominant scattering. For this purpose, we have utilized the conformity coefficient (μ) parameter-based method for identifying these dominant scattering. Firstly, dominant pixels have been extracted using the dominant scattering equations. These equations are presented in this work based on experimental analysis. Further, proposed criteria have been developed using the mapping between the extracted pixels from the dominant scattering equations and conformity coefficient (μ). The performance of the proposed classification criteria is examined over 33 subsamples from MiniSAR data of Peary, Rozhdestvenskiy, and Hermite craters. Further, the comparison of the proposed criteria with other decomposition methods have been performed. The experimental results from these comparisons indicate that the proposed method can further strengthen the existing decomposition-based analysis. The applicability of the proposed criteria was tested using ANOVA and Tukey’s HSD test, which supports the proposed approach.