Comparison of Sentinel-1 und TerraSAR-X for ship detection

Abstract

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is a flexible sensor able to fulfil users/applications requirements in terms of resolution and coverage thanks to different operational modes and polarization. With the availability of in-orbit very high resolution X-band SAR sensors, Sentinel-1 satellites have been designed to achieve medium- to high-resolution imaging capabilities and wide coverage. The Interferometric Wide Swath (IWS) mode implemented with Terrain Observation with Progressive Scan (TOPS) technique is the standard acquisition mode over European water and land masses for both interferometric applications, e.g. Digital Elevation Model (DEM), and maritime surveillance applications, e.g. pollution and vessel monitoring. IWS mode in dual-polarization (VV/VH) combination offers 250 km swath at 5m x 20m (range x azimuth) spatial resolution. Main research interests are the evaluation of the dual-polarimetric IWS Sentinel-1A data for ship detection and a first comparison with almost coincident very high resolution TerraSAR-X data collected over Gulf of Naples and Catania. Findings are drawn with the help of ground truth measurements provided by Automatic Identification System (AIS) reports.