Conference Agenda

This paper explores the use of multiple correlation coefficient R and complex correlation coefficient for reflection symmetry testing in multi-look polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) data. The recently proposed block-diagonality test statistic is actually related to the former, which arises from multiple linear regression. Moreover, the exact distribution of the squared multiple correlation R^2 for a 3x3 polarimetric covariance matrix is a beta distribution, which depends only on the number of looks L. As the number of looks tends to infinity, the limiting distribution of LR^2 is a gamma distribution with unit scale parameter and a shape parameter of two. For the complex correlation coefficient, its magnitude squared is also beta distributed. In this study, both the multiple correlation coefficient and complex correlation coefficient were applied to the NASA/JPL AIRSAR data acquired over Camp Roberts, California. The rugged terrain showed its characteristic of non-reflection symmetry. In addition, the reflection asymmetric target detection was carried out using multi-look ALOS-2 PALSAR-2 quad-polarisation data over selected test sites in Southeast Asia. The experimental results confirmed the usefulness of reflection symmetry property of geophysical media, particularly in detecting man-made objects, such as bridge, slightly oriented buildings, vessels, aquaculture farms, etc. However, some buildings, vessels, and part of bridges belonging to dihedrals were categorised as reflection symmetric targets.