Alignment of Multi-Frequency SAR Images Acquired over Sea Ice Using Drift Compensation

We investigate the feasibility to align synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery based on a compensation for sea ice drift occurring between temporally shifted image acquisitions. The alignment is requirement improving classification by combining multi-frequency SAR images acquired at different times. Images obtained frequencies provide complementary information, thus reducing ambiguities in separation of types and retrieval parameters. For we use displacement vectors from algorithm pattern matching. are organized triangular mesh used piecewise affine transformation slave onto master image. In our case study developed an framework pairs ALOS-2 PALSAR-2 (L-band) Sentinel-1 (C-band) images. demonstrate several successful examples time gaps ranging few hours days, depending conditions. data were over three test sites Arctic: Belgica Bank, Fram Strait, Lincoln Sea. assess quality using structural similarity index (SSIM). From vectors, locations extensions patches strong deformation determined which allows estimate possible areal size undeformed judgment expected each pair. comprehensive assessment hundreds aligned L-C shows potential method work under various environmental conditions provided that can be estimated reliably.