An X-Band Radar System for Bathymetry and Wave Field Analysis in a Harbour Area

Marine X-band radar based systems are well tested to provide information about sea state and bathymetry. It is also well known that complex geometries and non-uniform bathymetries provide a much bigger challenge than offshore scenarios. In order to tackle this issue a retrieval method is proposed, based on spatial partitioning of the data and the application of the Normalized Scalar Product (NSP), which is an innovative procedure for the joint estimation of bathymetry and surface currents. The strategy is then applied to radar data acquired around a harbour entrance, and results show that the reconstructed bathymetry compares well with ground truth data obtained by an echo-sounder campaign, thus proving the reliability of the whole procedure. The spectrum thus retrieved is then analysed to show the evidence of reflected waves from the harbour jetties, as confirmed by chain of hydrodynamic models of the sea wave field. The possibility of using a land based radar to reveal sea wave reflection is entirely new and may open up new operational applications of the system.

[1]  William J. Plant,et al.  Wave shadowing and modulation of microwave backscatter from the ocean , 2012 .

[2]  Katrin Hessner,et al.  Inversion of Marine Radar Images for Surface Wave Analysis , 2004 .

[3]  N. Booij,et al.  A third-generation wave model for coastal regions-1 , 1999 .

[4]  Dominic E. Reeve,et al.  Coastal Engineering: Processes, Theory and Design Practice , 2004 .

[5]  Fabio Dentale,et al.  RECONSTRUCTION OF SAR WAVE IMAGE EFFECTS THROUGH PSEUDO RANDOM SIMULATION , 2007 .

[6]  N.W.H. Allsop,et al.  REFLECTIONS FROM COASTAL STRUCTURES , 1988 .

[7]  Weimin Huang,et al.  Surface Current Measurement Under Low Sea State Using Dual Polarized X-Band Nautical Radar , 2012, IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing.

[8]  William J. Plant,et al.  Evidence of Bragg scattering in microwave Doppler spectra of sea return , 1990 .

[9]  K. Shadan,et al.  Available online: , 2012 .

[10]  N. Booij,et al.  A third‐generation wave model for coastal regions: 2. Verification , 1999 .

[12]  Maurizio di Bisceglie,et al.  Simulation of L-Band Bistatic Returns From the Ocean Surface: A Facet Approach With Application to Ocean GNSS Reflectometry , 2012, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.

[13]  Paul S. Bell,et al.  Mapping bathymetry using X-band marine radar data recorded from a moving vessel , 2011 .

[14]  H. Graber,et al.  Marine radar ocean wave retrieval’s dependency on range and azimuth , 2014, Ocean Dynamics.

[15]  Francesco Soldovieri,et al.  A Novel Approach Based on Marine Radar Data Analysis for High-Resolution Bathymetry Map Generation , 2014, IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters.

[16]  Robert C. Beal.  Directional ocean wave spectra : measuring, modeling, predicting, and applying , 1991 .

[17]  Maurizio di Bisceglie,et al.  Simulation of GNSS-R returns for delay-DOPPLER analysis of the ocean surface , 2009, 2009 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium.

[18]  Francesco Soldovieri,et al.  Remocean System for the Detection of the Reflected Waves from the Costa Concordia Ship Wreck , 2014, IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing.

[19]  Craig L. Stevens,et al.  High-resolution X-Band radar measurements of currents, bathymetry and sea state in highly inhomogeneous coastal areas , 2014, Ocean Dynamics.

[20]  Francesco Soldovieri,et al.  X-Band Marine Radar System for High-Speed Navigation Purposes: A Test Case on a Cruise Ship , 2014, IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters.

[21]  Fabio Dentale,et al.  Numerical Pseudo-Random Simulation of SAR Sea and Wind Response , 2006 .

[22]  Francesco Soldovieri,et al.  REMOCEAN: A Flexible X-Band Radar System for Sea-State Monitoring and Surface Current Estimation , 2012, IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters.

[23]  Francesco Soldovieri,et al.  Bathymetry Determination via X-Band Radar Data: A New Strategy and Numerical Results , 2010, Sensors.

[24]  Jörg Seemann,et al.  Determination of Bathymetric and Current Maps by the Method DiSC Based on the Analysis of Nautical X-Band Radar Image Sequences of the Sea Surface (November 2007) , 2008, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.

[25]  Francesco Soldovieri,et al.  A Novel Strategy for the Surface Current Determination From Marine X-Band Radar Data , 2010, IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters.