  The angle of rotation of any target about the radar line of sight (LOS) is
known as the polarization orientation angle. The orientation angle is found to
be non-zero for undulating terrains and man-made targets oriented away from the
radar LOS. This effect is more pronounced at lower frequencies (eg. L- and P-
bands). The orientation angle shift is not only induced by azimuthal slope but
also by range slope. This shift increases the cross-polarization (HV) intensity
and subsequently, the covariance or the coherency matrix becomes reflection
asymmetric. Compensating this orientation angle prior to any model-based
decomposition technique for geophysical parameter estimation or classification
is crucial. In this paper, a new method is proposed to estimate the orientation
angle based on the maximization of the degree of polarization. The proposed
method is then used to infer the change in the degree of polarization with the
associated orientation angle.
