Validation of Ship Signatures in Envisat ASAR AP Mode Data using AISLive: Data Acquisition, Processing, and Analysis Results

Abstract

Ships appear in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) ocean imagery as bright targets against the ocean clutter background. Envisat Advanced SAR (ASAR) Alternating Polarization (AP) mode data acquisitions over the Strait of Dover and the Strait of Gibraltar, two high-density shipping regions with Automatic Identification System (AIS) coverage via AISLive, have provided a large database of validated ship signatures. For each validated ship signature, several metrics were computed including the clutter statistics, the total radar cross section of each ship, and the ship signature length. These metrics were evaluated in terms of the polarization, the local incidence angle, the validated ship length, the target to clutter ratio, and the ship aspect angle. This is a very rich data set that has yielded new observations and insights to ship detectability by SAR. These results could have bearing on the design of future SAR modes or SAR missions, and could be used to improve the performance of ship detection software.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 01, 2008
Accession Number
ADA479306

Entities

People

  • John Wolfe
  • Paris W. Vachon

Organizations

  • Defence Research and Development Canada

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Ground and Sea Platforms

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Acquisition
  • Aspect Angle
  • Automatic Identification Systems
  • Cross Polarization
  • Data Acquisition
  • Data Sets
  • Databases
  • Detection
  • Graphical User Interface
  • High Density
  • Identification
  • Identification Systems
  • Polarization
  • Radar Cross Sections
  • Security
  • Statistics
  • Synthetic Aperture Radar

Readers

  • Oceanography.
  • Sensor Fusion and Tracking Systems.
  • Space/Atmospheric Physics.