Automatic detection of ocean internal wave from SAR image

Abstract

Oceanic internal waves are present on all levels of the water column in deep oceans as well as in marginal coastal seas. They appear as elongated bright and dark features in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images as they are associated with variable surface currents that modify the sea surface roughness patterns via current-wave interaction. Because of the influence of SAR noise and other factors, it will be disturbed when we use computer auto-detection technique to detect the oceanic internal wave. In this paper, an automatic method has been developed for detection of oceanic internal wave on satellite SAR images based on the nature of sea surface oceanic internal wave. The procedure includes the edge detection, point joining and the determination and presentation of sea surface oceanic internal wave. Examples of detection of the oceanic internal wave on SAR images by the procedure are illustrated. The results of the sea surface oceanic internal wave detection shown that the procedure works well.