| Abstract | Trail and road detection is important for management and monitoring of tropical rainforests. RADARSAT offers the potential of using various resolutions at various incidence angles, and there is
considerable interest in determining the optimum sensor configurations for the best trail and road detection. In this paper, the C-band SAR imaging geometry, with respect to the trail (or road) is considered, and a simple but effective model is
developed for the study of trail detectability in imagery of rainforests with no significant topographic relief. It is shown that the visibility of these features in SAR images depends mainly on SAR ground range resolution, forest canopy height,
trail (or road) widths, and trail orientation relative to the SAR viewing direction. The results are confirmed experimentally using RADARSAT and ERS-l data that were collected over a dense forest site in the south of Sumatra, Indonesia, consisting
mainly of rubber trees and oil palm trees plantations. The best trail detectability was obtained with RADARSAT fine modes at the highest incidence angle. The use of ascending and descending fine modes is ideal, since it permits trail imaging with
different orientation and from opposite trail sides, and as such increases trail detectability. |