Abstract
Ocean surveillance is one of the important applications of synthetic aperture radar (SAR). Polarimetric SAR provides multi-channel information and shows great potential for monitoring ocean dynamic environments. Oil spills are a form of pollution that can seriously affect the marine ecosystem. Dual-polarimetric SAR systems are usually used for routine ocean surface monitoring. The hybrid dual-pol SAR imaging mode, known as compact polarimetry, can provide more information than the conventional dual-pol imaging modes. However, backscatter measurements of the hybrid dual-pol mode depend on the transmit wave polarization, which results in lacking consistent interpretation for various compact polarimetric (CP) images. In this study, we will explore the capability of different CP modes for oil spill detection and discrimination. Firstly, we introduce the general CP formalism method to formulate an arbitrary CP backscattered wave, such that the target scattering vector is characterized in the same framework for all CP modes. Then, a recently proposed CP decomposition method is investigated to reveal the backscattering properties of oil spills and their look-alikes. Both intensity and polarimetric features are studied to analyze the optimal CP mode for oil spill observation. Spaceborne polarimetric SAR data sets collected over natural oil slicks and experimental biogenic slicks are used to demonstrate the capability of the general CP mode for ocean surface surveillance.
Highlights
Marine oil spills have been of tremendous concern due to the adverse impact on ocean economic and ecological systems
We focus on the detection of oil spills by using polarimetric features measured by compact polarimetric (CP) modes
The performance of the degree of polarization (m) were studied for both oil spill and ship detections under several typical dual-pol modes [16], but analysis related to oil look-alikes was not included
Summary
Marine oil spills have been of tremendous concern due to the adverse impact on ocean economic and ecological systems. The performance of the degree of polarization (m) were studied for both oil spill and ship detections under several typical dual-pol modes [16], but analysis related to oil look-alikes was not included. The hybrid dual-pol features were only studied under the conventional HH/VH and HV/VV polarizations, as well as the circular and linear π/4 CP modes. A formalism method was first proposed for the CP backscattered vector, and a polarization ratio-based target decomposition method was developed to represent the scattering mechanism and the scattering randomness of targets for an arbitrary hybrid dual-pol mode [28]. The performances of the general CP features for oil spill detection and discrimination are analyzed and the optimal CP mode for ocean environment monitoring is studied.
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