Spaceborne radar remote sensing of ocean surfaces: electromagnetic modelling and applications

ABSTRACT

Spaceborne synthetic aperture radars are powerful tools for monitoring ocean surfaces. Various environmental conditions prevailing on the ocean surfaces strongly influence the quality of detection and monitoring using spaceborne imaging radars. In this paper, we discussed the electromagnetic modelling and applications of spaceborne polarimetric synthetic aperture radar for oil spill monitoring on ocean surface. Starting with the physics of electromagnetic wave scattering by ocean surfaces, we have introduced different concepts of polarimetric radar backscattering. These concepts are later used to develop different detection algorithms for enhanced identification of oil spills on ocean surfaces. We discussed two advanced schemes for post-processing fully polarimetric radar data for accurately detecting oil spills under varying ocean conditions. In doing so, we highlighted the challenges and advantages of single and half polarimetric spaceborne missions. Finally, we demonstrated how optimal combination of different channel information further improves the detection of oil spills and reduces false alarms.

KEYWORDS:

• Electromagnetic modelling
• radar remote sensing
• spaceborne imaging
• synthetic aperture radar
• SAR
• ocean oil spill monitoring

Acknowledgments

Thanks to the European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Italy for supporting this research. This work is part of the ongoing research in Radical Innovations Group – RIG.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Krishnaswamy Sankaran  http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7099-2728

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Krishnaswamy Sankaran

Dr Krishnaswamy Sankaran is an established industrialist with several years of experience in energy, utilities, metals, mining, infrastructure, production, and recycling industries. He is presently the Chief Executive Officer of the Radical Innovations Group AB, Finland. He designed and runs one of the world's largest fully online programme on computational electromagnetics and applications. He received doctorate in engineering sciences from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH Zurich, Switzerland, masters from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology KIT, Germany, and a joint executive masters in organisational development and leadership from Wharton School, Columbia University, INSEAD, and London Business School. He is a recognised thought leader and keynote speaker in many international forums. He has several years of training in Advaita philosophy.