Dual polarisation SAR for combined vessel and oil spill detection

Kongsberg Satellite Services (KSAT) has provided an operational service utilizing satellite radar images for detection of oil spills and ships for more than a decade. Radarat-2 was included into the service chain from October 2008. RADARSAT-2 has the possibility of acquiring products with dual polarization which was expected to improve the capabilities of using the same product both for pollution and source detection. While VV or HH polarized images and steep incidence angles are preferred for oil spill detection, HH at shallow incidence angles or HV at steep incidence angles are preferred for ship detection. The European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC) and KSAT have explored the ship detection performance of RADARSAT-2 dual polarization mode based on Standard, Wide and ScanSAR products. It is found that HV polarization performs best over a wide range of incidence angles.

INDREGARD Marte;  BAUNA Tony;  VAN WIMERSMA GREIDANUS Herman;  CICUENDEZ-PEREZ Juanignacio; 

2010-03-31

International Center for Remote Sensing of Environment (ICRSE)

JRC56297

https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC56297,