A Marine Radar Based Ocean Surface Feature Monitoring System

Today, marine radar-image sequences are used on an operational basis to measure ocean surface wave parameters [1] [2]. In addition, they have shown to be useful in measuring the evolution of individual waves in time and space [3] [4], current and bathymetry fields [5] [6] [7] as well as surface wind fields [8]. The typical marine radar systems used for these applications operate in the X-band at grazing incidence. For this electromagnetic wavelength and incidence angles, microwave backscatter from the ocean surface is primarily caused by smallscale surface roughness (in the range of centimeters). However, at grazing incidence there are several additional important mechanisms leading to the microwave backscatter [9].