Simulating Bistatic Scatter From Surfaces Covered With Vegetation

Abstract

Many experimental and theoretical studies have shown that the use of active systems for monitoring plant biomass suffers from saturation problems. The possibility of overcoming this limit by considering a bistatic configuration is theoretically analyzed for the case of sunflower fields. An electromagnetic model, already developed and validated on active and passive data, has been modified to yield the bistatic scattering coefficient. To this end, coherent scattering from the soil has been included, which resulted to be the most relevant component of specular scattering. According to model simulations, the specular scattering cross section normalized to area does not exhibit severe saturation effects and shows a better sensitivity to biomass at higher frequencies.