Case Studies: Vessel Detection using SAR Imagery

Source: Olsen R.B., P.Vachon and T Wahl, presented at Ship Detection In Coastal Waters Workshop Agenda, May 30, 2000.

Summary of Paper:

The paper summarizes the approaches to deriving ship location from SAR imagery. Both point target detection and wake detection are described.

With respect to the detection rate of ships, it is dependent on vessel size, type and orientation as well as wind conditions, viewing geometry and algorithm parameters. Through experiments, RADARSAT-1 detection rates were upwards of 85% for ocean going vessels, and possibly 95% for modes with optimum geometry and spatial resolution.

It was noted that there are no extensive validations of speed and heading in recent literature; thus this is an area, which is not operationally available. The similar case is true for vessel classification.

With respect to the future, swath coverage at larger incidence angles (>35 degrees) is an important parameter to ship surveillance. In addition, a key requirement to improve the utilization of SAR data will be increase frequency of coverage.

The multi-polarization modes are also of significant interest. It is anticipated the VV/VH may be an optimal combination, where the VH channel is used for point target analysis and the VV channel is used for supporting wake analysis.