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In the past SAR observations including JERS-1/SAR, single polarization such as HH (horizontal polarization both for sending and receiving signals) and VV (vertical polarization both for sending and receiving signals) was generally applied. Polarization is characteristic to radio wave just like a vector, showing different conditions of reflectance per object depending on the direction of electric field. In other words, reflectance wave is the information pertaining to each object.
Thus, simultaneous acquisition of horizontal (H) and vertical (V) polarization enables to unravel polarization information of a certain object completely. SAR equipped with this capability is called polarimetric SAR. Especially, SAR with the capability of acquiring H and V for both sending and receiving signals is called full polarimetric SAR, which is a function characteristic to PALSAR.
Full polarimetric SAR enables more detailed measurements compared to conventional single polarization SAR. Application study is steadily in progress in fields such as forest fire monitoring, classification of vegetation (height), water content in vegetation, monitoring of snow cover, condition of ice, flood monitoring and soil moisture.
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