Maritime NRT Products using TerraSAR-X, Sentinel, and Radarsat data

Abstract

High resolution Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data from TerraSAR-X/Tandem-X satellites are used to determine and monitor the sea surface in near real time (NRT) and all weather and illumination conditions. The radar backscatter of the sea surface is determined by the sea surface roughness caused by the wind field and the sea state. These meteo-marine parameters are modelled by the newly developed algorithms XMOD and XWAVE relating the wind field and sea state, depending on incidence angle and directionality to the radar backscatter sigma0. The TerraSAR-X Modes Stripmap, Scan SAR and Scan SAR Wide are used together with Sentinel and RADARSAT data to detect ships, oil spills and icebergs. The detectability depending on the background conditions is discussed. Several examples from near real time campaigns performed together with users are given.