Sea state monitoring using coastal GNSS‐R

TLDR

The study investigates coastal GPS L1 reflections to monitor sea state. The experiment at Barcelona Port used a custom GNSS‑R system to collect GPS L1 reflections, producing an interferometric complex field time series that was compared offline to a model linking coherence time with significant wave height and mean wave period. The results demonstrate that ICF coherence time correlates well with buoy measurements, indicating that coastal GNSS‑R can effectively monitor sea state via semi‑empirical modeling.

Abstract

We report on a coastal experiment to study GPS L1 reflections. The campaign was carried out at the Barcelona Port breaker and dedicated to the development of sea-state retrieval algorithms. An experimental system built for this purpose collected and processed GPS data to automatically generate a times series of the interferometric complex field (ICF). The ICF was analyzed off line and compared to a simple developed model that relates ICF coherence time to the ratio of significant wave height (SWH) and mean wave period (MWP). The analysis using this model showed good consistency between the ICF coherence time and nearby oceanographic buoy data. Based on this result, preliminary conclusions are drawn on the potential of coastal GNSS-R for sea state monitoring using semi-empirical modeling to relate GNSS-R ICF coherence time to SWH.