Computer-based algorithm for ship detection from ERS SAR imagery

Abstract

This works investigate the possibility in detecting ships and their wakes in the Singapore waters from ERS Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery. It is well known that certain ships and wakes can be observed in the SAR imagery. SAR processor usually assumes target to be stationary. If the target (ship) is moving, the target position in the image is shifted azimuthly from its actual position (i.e. the position of the ship wake). Such information can be used to obtain ship speed and heading. Since monitoring of ship traffic is a routine exercise, it is thus desirable to develop computer-based algorithms to perform this task. In this paper, an algorithm based on the Radon transform and other image processing techniques is introduced and results are presented.