Analysis of nautical X-band radar images for the generation of bathymetric map by the NSP method

This work presents the experimental validation of a novel data processing approach to estimate the local depth in a shallow coastal area starting from X-band radar data. The approach is based on the maximization of the Normalized Scalar Product (NSP) between the measured and the theoretical wave dispersion relations, which embed the dependence on the searched for parameters (current vector and depth). The use of NSP approach allows obtaining a high resolution spatial map of the investigated area and a thorough statistical analysis of this approach is carried out by comparison with the ground truth data collected by a multibeam echo-sounder. Finally, the accuracy of the NSP approach is compared with the one achieved by other methods and prove to provide better results.