A procedure for measuring the coherence length of the sea texture

In this paper we address the problem of measuring the coherence length of the sea-scattered signal. The technique we propose requires the data to be amenable to a compound-Gaussian representation. The core of the procedure consists in approaching the problem as a binary hypothesis test. In order to apply the technique to experimental data a preliminary calibration is necessary based on a set of training sequences with known characteristics. Finally, the procedure has been applied to measure the coherence length of sea data collected by the scatterometer mounted on the “Forschungsplatform Nordsee” during the SAXON experiment in November, 1990