DIRECT EVIDENCE AND IMPLICATIONS OF BREWSTER’S ANGLE DAMPING OBSERVED BY SYNTHETIC APERTURE RADAR IMAGES

Abstract

This paper describes the direct evidence of Brewster’s angledamping and its effects on polarimetric analyses observed inthe synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images of concreteconstructions such as seawalls. The reflectivity of concretematerial is nearly zero at the Brewster angle for X-band VVpolarizationmicrowave. The TerraSAR-X image acquiredover the Tokyo Bay, Japan at small incidence angles showedstrong double-bounce reflection by the sea and constructionsurfaces with HH-polarization, while with VV-polarization,very little radar backscatter was observed.material is nearly zero at the Brewster angle for X-band VVpolarizationmicrowave. The TerraSAR-X image acquiredover the Tokyo Bay, Japan at small incidence angles showedstrong double-bounce reflection by the sea and constructionsurfaces with HH-polarization, while with VV-polarization,very little radar backscatter was observed.