Eric Pottier, Jong-Sen Lee
Several space borne Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (PolSAR) systems are in operation since 2006: ALOS/PALSAR (L-band) launched in January 2006, TerraSAR-X (X-Band) launched in June 2007, and RADARSAT-2 (C-Band) launched in December 2007.
For the first time, the availability of spaceborne PolSAR data will provide an unprecedented opportunity for applying advanced PolSAR information processing techniques to the important tasks of environmental monitoring. PolSAR remote sensing offers an efficient and reliable means of collecting information required to extract geophysical and biophysical parameters from Earth’s surface. This remote sensing technique has found many successful applications in crop monitoring and damage assessment, in forestry clear cut mapping, deforestation and burn mapping, in land surface structure (geology) land cover (biomass) and land use, in hydrology (soil moisture, flood delineation), in sea ice monitoring, in oceans and coastal monitoring (oil spill detection) etc.
SAR Polarimetry represents today a very active area of research in Radar Remote Sensing, and it becomes important to train and prepare the future generation of researchers to this very important topic.
The aim of this tutorial is to provide a substantial and balanced introduction to the basic theory, scattering concepts, systems and advanced concepts, and applications typical to radar polarimetric remote sensing. This tutorial on SAR polarimetry touches several subjects: basic theory, scattering modeling, data representations, target decompositions, speckle filtering, terrain and land-use classification, man-made target analysis, etc. This lecture will be illustrated by ALOS-PALSAR, TerraSAR-X and RADARSAT-2 polarimetric SAR images. The connection to polarimetric SAR interferometry will be also briefly reviewed.
This lecture is intended to scientists, engineers and students engaged in the fields of Radar Remote Sensing and interested in Polarimetric SAR image analysis and applications. Some background in SAR processing techniques and microwave scattering would be an advantage and familiarity in matrix algebra is required.
Eric Pottier (IEEE M’95, SM’06, SEE SM’07) received the MSc (87) and Ph.D. (90) in « signal processing and telecommunication » from the University of Rennes 1 and defended his Habilitation from the University of Nantes in 1998 on the topic « Contribution to Radar Polarimetry : From Theoretical Approach to Applications ».
From 1988 to 1999 he held an associate professor position at IRESTE -University of Nantes, France where he was the head of the Polarimetry Group of the Electronic and Informatic Systems laboratory.
Since 1999, he is full professor at the University of Rennes 1, France, where he is presently the Deputy Director of the Institute of Electronics and Telecommunications of Rennes (I.E.T.R – CNRS UMR 6164) – a staff of 300 Professors, Associate-Professors, Assistant-Professors, Researchers and PhD Students. He is also the Head of the SAPHIR team (SAr Polarimetry Holography Interferometry Radargrammetry) of the Image Processing and Remote Sensing Group.
His current activities of research and education are centered in the topics of analog electronics, microwave theory and radar imaging with emphasis in radar polarimetry.
His research covers a wide spectrum of areas in connection with a number of different applications of Radar and SAR data. His experience is within a number of disciplines related to processing and analysis of Radar data (ISAR Target Imaging, RCS analysis and reduction, scatterer fluctuating modelisation, scatterer time-frequency analysis, SAR system modelling and simulation) and POLSAR data (polarimetric speckle analysis and reduction, polarimetric segmentation, and classification, polarimetric theorem decomposition) to fundamentals and basic theory of polarimetry.
He has presented advances courses on Radar Polarimetry in the frame of the European TMR Project Radar Polarimetry : Theory and Applications and seminars to a wide range of organization (DLR, NASDA, JRC, RESTEC).
He was invited as a Keynote Speaker or gave Tutorials during the following symposiums: SPIE-1992, ISAP-2000, IGARSS-03, EUSAR-04, NATO RTA-04, POLINSAR-05, IGARSS-05, DRAGON Workshop 2005, NATO RTA-06, EUSAR-06, POLINSAR-07, ESA Advanced Training Course 2007, IGARSS-07, IGARSS-08, DRAGON-2 Advanced Training Course 2008, ESA Advanced Training Course 2009, IGARSS-09.
Since 1989, he has supervised more than 60 research students to graduation (MSc and Ph.D) in Radar Polarimetry covering areas from theory to remote sensing applications.
He has chaired and organized 35 sessions in International Conferences. He has been invited to present 46 presentations in International Conferences or Seminars and 17 in National Conferences.
He has 7 publications in book chapters, more than 45 papers in refereed journals and more than 310 papers during International Conferences, Symposiums and Workshops.
He published a book co-authored with Dr. J.S. Lee entitled “Polarimetric Radar Imaging: From basics to applications”, CRC Press, Taylor & Francis editor, 397 pages, (2009), ISBN: 978-1-4200-5497-2.
He received the Award for a Very Significant Contribution in the Field of Synthetic Aperture Radar during EUSAR-2000 for his research activities, co-authored with J.S. Lee (US Navy/NRL), in the topic of PolSAR unsupervised segmentation.
He received the Certificate Of Appreciation For Serving as Lecturer for NATO-RTO Lecture Series SET-081 in 2004. He was nominated as Associate Professor of Capital Normal University of Beijing (October 2005), as Invited Professor at I.N.R.S – ETE of Québec (2006 to 2012) and as Guest Professor of the State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing, University of Wuhan, Wuhan – PR China (2008).
He received the 2007 IEEE GRS-S Letters Prize Paper Award co-authored with S. Guillaso, L. Ferro-Famil and A. Reigber.
He is a recipient of the 2007 IEEE GRS-S Education Award “In recognition of his significant educational contributions to Geoscience and Remote Sensing”.
Jong-Sen Lee (M’69-SM’91-F’97-LF’05) received his PhD in engineering (control theory) and A.M. in applied mathematics from Harvard University in 1965 and 1969, respectively. After graduated from Harvard, he joined US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) as an electronics engineer. He retired in 2006 after 37 years service as the Head of the Image Science Section, Remote Sensing Division. Upon his retirement, he received the distinguished Navy Meritorious Civilian Service Award for his significant and sustained contributions toward SAR and polarimetric SAR research. Each year at NRL, only one or two researchers receive this distinguished award. From 2006 to the present, he is a Visiting Chair Professor, he has been lecturing at the Center for Space and Remote Sensing Research, National Central University, Chung-Li, Taiwan.
Dr. Lee’s professional expertise encompasses Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and polarimetric SAR information processing including radar polarimetry, polarimetric SAR speckle statistics, speckle filtering, ocean remote sensing using polarimetric SAR, supervised and unsupervised polarimetric SAR terrain and land-use classification, digital image processing, radiative transfer, and control theory. He has contributed toward the pertinent current state-of-arts, and published more than 75 journal papers, six book chapters and more than 200 conference proceedings. These papers have been widely referenced as is reflected by the accumulated citation counts of a total greater than 3000 (compiled by Google Scholar on November 12, 2008). Jointly with Professor Eric Pottier, he completed a self-contained SAR remote sensing textbook entitled “Polarimetric Radar Imaging: From basics to Applications”. Taylor and Francis (CRC) published the book in January 2009.
Dr. Lee is a Life Fellow of IEEE for his contribution toward information processing of SAR and polarimetric SAR imagery. At IGARSS2009, he received the IEEE GRS-S Distinguished Achievement Award. He was presented the Best Paper Award (jointly with E. Pottier) and the Best Poster Award (jointly with D. Schuler) at the Third and Fourth European Conference on Synthetic Aperture Radar (EUSAR2000 and EUSAR2002), respectively. A U.S. Patent entitled “Terrain Slope Measurement Using Polarimetric SAR” was granted to him in 1996, with co-recipient, Dale Schuler. He is an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.
©2017 Conference Management Services, Inc. 
email: webmaster@igarss2010.org Last updated Wednesday, March 24, 2010