Ship Detection Using TerraSAR-X Images in the Campos Basin (Brazil)

Author

Paes, Rafael L. ; Lorenzzetti, Joao A. ; Gherardi, Douglas F M

Author_Institution

IEAv Geointelligence Div., Inst. of Adv. Studies, São Jose dos Campos, Brazil

Volume

7

Issue

3

fYear

2010

fDate

7/1/2010 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

545

Lastpage

548

Abstract

The very large extent of the Brazilian coast (~8000 km) and the growing maritime vessel traffic demand that research be made on ancillary methods to monitor and control ship´s traffic in national waters. An important tool for this purpose is the use of orbital synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery, particularly due to its ability to work day and night and to suffer almost no interference of cloud coverage. In this letter, we investigate some ship detection concepts, as applied to TerraSAR-X (TSX) ScanSAR images (16-m resolution), in VV and HH polarization. Ocean clutter statistical parameters are estimated, and the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test is used to verify the goodness of fit for the K-distribution to TSX images. A constant false alarm rate (CFAR) target detection algorithm is developed, and its performance is verified. Incidence angle, CFAR´s window size, and probability of false alarm influence are further analyzed.

Keywords

object detection; parameter estimation; probability; radar detection; radar imaging; ships; statistical distributions; synthetic aperture radar; CFAR window size; Campos Basin; HH polarization; K-distribution; Kolmogorov-Smirnov test; VV polarization; constant false alarm rate; false alarm probability; maritime vessel traffic; ocean clutter statistical parameter estimation; orbital synthetic aperture radar imagery; ship detection; ship traffic control; target detection algorithm; terraSAR-X images; Constant false alarm rate (CFAR); K-distribution; TerraSAR-X (TSX); estimation; ship detection;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1545-598X

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LGRS.2010.2041322

Filename

5424034