Estimation of Soil Electric Properties and Water Content Through PolSAR Target Decomposition

Authors

  • Mai Z. Ibrahim High Institute of Electronic Engineering (HIEE), High Institute of Electronic Engineering, Belbeis, Egypt
  • Ahmed I. Bahnacy Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Faculty of Electronic Engineering, Menouf, 32952, Egypt
  • Khalid F. A. Hussein Microwave Engineering Department, Electronics Research Institute, Cairo, 11843, Egypt
  • Asmaa E. Farahat Microwave Engineering Department, Electronics Research Institute, Cairo, 11843, Egypt https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5983-0808

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.13052/2022.ACES.J.371006

Keywords:

PolSAR, Target Decomposition, soil parameters

Abstract

A new method is proposed to recover the electric properties and water content of ground soil by applying the Target Decomposition (TD) theory for Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (PolSAR) images. The proposed method depends on the ϵ-σ characteristic curves of the soil which are unique for each soil type at a specific frequency. This method is examined for the clayey type soil which is found in most naturally vegetated land areas. Also, a novel method is developed for the realistic simulation of PolSAR images of natural lands, including forest regions, grasslands, and bare lands being prepared for gardens or crop cultivation. This method is based on the reverse of the PolSAR TD theory. The numerical results presented in this paper are concerned with the characterization of the most common type of clayey soil. Also, some of the numerical results presented in the present paper aim to achieve realistic PolSAR datasets using the inverse TD theory. Finally, some numerical results are presented for quantitative assessment of the method proposed to recover the properties and water content of the clayey soil using the datasets which are obtained through realistic simulations of forested areas, gardens, grasslands, and bare lands being prepared for cultivated plants. It is found, through the numerical investigations and quantitative assessment, that the dielectric constant, electric conductivity and water content of the investigated clayey types of soil are accurately estimated.

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Author Biographies

Mai Z. Ibrahim, High Institute of Electronic Engineering (HIEE), High Institute of Electronic Engineering, Belbeis, Egypt

Mai Z. Ibrahim was born in El-Sharqia, Egypt. She received her B.Sc. in Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering from the Higher Institute of Engineering in Belbeis in May 2018. She is working currently toward an M.Sc in Synthetic Aperture Radar Image Processing for the Classification of Land Covers at the Faculty of Electronic Engineering, Menoufia University. Her area of research involves radar imagining techniques, remote sensing, and electromagnetic wave propagation.

Ahmed I. Bahnacy, Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Faculty of Electronic Engineering, Menouf, 32952, Egypt

Ahmed I. M. Bahnacy Bahnasy received his B.Sc. in Radio Communication Engineering, Faculty of Electronic Engineering, Menouf, Egypt, in May 1981. He received an M.Sc degree in Electrical Communications (Antennas), from the Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt, Nov. 1987. Ph.D. in Electrical Communications (Antennas), Faculty of Electronic Engineering, Menouf, Egypt, in 1993, in collaboration with Robert Gordon Institute of Technology (RGIT), Aberdeen, UK. Lecturer, Dept. of Electronics & Electrical Communications, Faculty of Electronic Engineering, Menouf, 32952, Egypt from 1993-2000. Assoc. Prof., Dept. of Electronics & Electrical Communications, Faculty of Electronic Engineering, Menouf 32952, Egypt since Dec. 2000. From 2001 to 2011, he was with the College of Technology in Tabouk, Saudi Arabia. He went back to his position in Egypt in 2011. In 2018 he became an Emeritus Professor in the same Department.

Khalid F. A. Hussein, Microwave Engineering Department, Electronics Research Institute, Cairo, 11843, Egypt

Khalid F. A. Hussein received his B.Sc., M.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees from the Department of Electronics and Electrical Communications, Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University, in 1990, 1995, and 2001, respectively. He is currently a professor at the Department of Microwave Engineering at the Electronics Research Institute. He has more than 29 years of research experience and more than 20 years of teaching experience in engineering colleges at various universities. He has supervised more than seventy doctoral and master theses. He has published more than 100 papers in international, regional, and local scientific journals and conferences. He has served as Head of the Microwave Engineering Department at the Electronics Research Institute for four years. He has been a member of the Egyptian Space Program (currently the Egyptian Space Agency) for more than eight years. He has worked as Principal Investigator for four research projects and Head of Research Group in four other research projects. He designed and implemented several satellite antennas from prototypes to finished products. He has provided scientific consultations and conducted field measurements related to the design and distribution of mobile communication base station antennas for good signal coverage on behalf of many Egyptian and international companies. His research interests include antennas, electromagnetic wave propagation, risk assessment of human exposure to microwave radiation, optical communications, photonics, quantum computing, radar systems, particularly ground penetrating radar (GPR), synthetic aperture radar (SAR), and remote sensing systems.

Asmaa E. Farahat, Microwave Engineering Department, Electronics Research Institute, Cairo, 11843, Egypt

Asmaa E. Farahat received her B.Sc. and M.Sc. from the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University, in 2002 and 2006, respectively. She received her Ph.D. in 2012 from Ain Shams University. She is currently an Associate Professor at the Department of Microwave Engineering at the Electronics Research Institute. She has approximately 17 years of research experience. She has published more than 35 papers in international, regional, and local scientific journals and conferences. She has worked as a secondary investigator for three research projects. Her research interests include antennas, electromagnetic wave propagation, risk assessment of human exposure to microwave radiation, remote sensing systems, and radars.

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Published

2022-10-31

How to Cite

[1]
M. Z. . Ibrahim, A. I. . Bahnacy, K. F. A. . Hussein, and A. E. . Farahat, “Estimation of Soil Electric Properties and Water Content Through PolSAR Target Decomposition”, ACES Journal, vol. 37, no. 10, pp. 1058–1070, Oct. 2022.

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