Ship Detection Using TerraSAR-X Images in the Campos Basin (Brazil)

Abstract

The very large extent of the Brazilian coast (~8000 km) and the growing maritime vessel traffic demand that research be made on ancillary methods to monitor and control ship's traffic in national waters. An important tool for this purpose is the use of orbital synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery, particularly due to its ability to work day and night and to suffer almost no interference of cloud coverage. In this letter, we investigate some ship detection concepts, as applied to TerraSAR-X (TSX) ScanSAR images (16-m resolution), in VV and HH polarization. Ocean clutter statistical parameters are estimated, and the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test is used to verify the goodness of fit for the K-distribution to TSX images. A constant false alarm rate (CFAR) target detection algorithm is developed, and its performance is verified. Incidence angle, CFAR's window size, and probability of false alarm influence are further analyzed.