Deep Learning Meets SAR

Deep learning in remote sensing has become an international hype, but it is mostly limited to the evaluation of optical data. Although deep learning has been introduced in SAR data processing, despite successful first attempts, its huge potential remains locked. For example, to the best knowledge of the authors, there is no single example of deep learning in SAR that has been developed up to operational processing of big data or integrated into the production chain of any satellite mission. In this paper, we provide an introduction to the most relevant deep learning models and concepts, point out possible pitfalls by analyzing special characteristics of SAR data, review the state-of-the-art of deep learning applied to SAR in depth, summarize available benchmarks, and recommend some important future research directions. With this effort, we hope to stimulate more research in this interesting yet under-exploited research field.